


treehouse (do not enter is written on the doorway)

by MURPHYCORE



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 2 year age gap, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dyslexic John Murphy, John Murphy-centric (The 100), M/M, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Underage Smoking, adhd bellamy blake, but also childhood friends to lovers?, i suck at summaries please please read, ied john murphy, inspired by treehouse by alex g, kind of enemies to lovers?, lowercase intended, this fic means so much to me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 57,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28051182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MURPHYCORE/pseuds/MURPHYCORE
Summary: for most of his life, john murphy had one place of solace: a treehouse at the end of his backyard, buried in the forest of trees it opened up to. at age twelve, its where he meets his best friend, octavia, and gets caught up in the whirlwind that is the blakes lives.solace was found in the treehouse, and bellamy blakes gentle nature.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy
Comments: 33
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the entire purpose of this fic is to reimagine that warm feeling you get when you revisit your childhood home.
> 
> the beginning is a rerun of their childhood, their growth and their relationships. from there, the story will build across chapters. two years ago i visited my childhood house and i've wanted to write about it since, and although the treehouse aspect is inspired by the alex g song, the rest (including the poverty, the backyard forest, the friendships, the daddy issues) is all based on my own experiences. i really hope you enjoy, this fic means a lot to me. i’ve probably written a hundred in my time on the internet, but i think this means the most. 
> 
> also, murpyhs dyslexia and ied is written directly from my own diagnosed experiences with both. i only proof read this once and i am heavily dyslexic so im sorry for any mistakes. enjoy.

john murphy had one place of solace, a treehouse.

it wasn’t a very good treehouse. a mere few planks of wood bolted to the tall oak and ply wood walls that shook during storms, ones that had been tacked there for long before his own family moved in. over the years he’d accumulated miscellaneous objects; a wooden birdhouse he’d made in class and hooked onto the side of the makeshift floor, a crappy bright blue, plastic poles and tarpaulin deck chair that sat toward one corner, a small wicker basket packed with scratchy blankets. 

for a long time, his dad was the only one to have known about the tree house. he’d been the one to replace the awkward flat ugly roof with a nicer one, promising to change the ply wood walls out the following year too, maybe even insulate it and paint it. he never go the chance to.

since then, murphy hadn’t added anything to the treehouse. once, he thought about altering the walls himself, but he was getting too big to even shuffle awkwardly through the doorway, and he didn’t want to be helpful for the kids that would live there after him. the tree it had been built in wasn’t even technically his family’s, their back yard merged with the forrest behind it and his tree was one of them. it had led to complications when he was younger, like the blakes that lived next door imposing on his little home.

the treehouse had always been hidden by the thick green brush of trees, it was only really noticeable if you looked directly up through the branches and saw the flat planks, but that was apparently noticeable enough for an twelve year old octavia blake. murphy was the same age as her, they went to the same middle school and shared all their classes. they’d never talked other than one occasion where murphy had stabbed her with a pen because she tried to steal his pencils. 

he was sat alone when she’d found it, holding a picture book in his little hands and reading the words slowly, biting his tongue whenever they swam on the page. he could hear her voice, not talking to anyone in particular, but just exclaiming excitedly. he knew why, it was every kids wish to find a treehouse. but that treehouse was his.

octavia was more stubborn than he’d bargained for. she’d clambered her way up without the rope ladder that murphy always made sure to hide, and when she saw him stood in the doorway, she jumped and almost fell off the branch she was crouched on. murphy didn’t want to get in trouble for letting her fall, or being accused of pushing her, so he grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her onto the deck just outside the actual treehouse. 

she instantly started ranting about how cool it was, especially because it was ‘so awesomely hidden!’. murphy hadn’t been impressed, standing there in silence as she rambled away. when she tried to walk around him to look inside, he put an arm out to stop her. he didn’t say a word, but the shitty scrawled writing above the doorway proved just how much he wanted visitors. 

“you spelled enter wrong.” octavia remarked bluntly, crossing her small arms over her chest. murphy didn’t mean to get angry, he really didn’t. he was supposed to be better behaved, for his dad, but when he turned around to read his own writing the letters danced across the wood and the annoyance that burned under his skin lit into flames. he turned back to octavia and shoved her off the treehouse.

she cried. when he jumped down to check on her, panic setting in his bones, he twisted his own ankle and tore his jeans so bad that the blood from impact stained his skin for weeks. when he helped her up, she said she didn’t blame him, and that she should have asked before going in. he noticed that she flinched when he held his hand out to help her up though. he limped with her to her backyard, and when they got to the little woven gate, murphy’s eyes locked on a very concerned older boy, who in turn of noticing him looked only angry. 

octavia asked if he wanted to come inside and have an ice cream. he declined quietly, opening the gate for her and turning away before her brother could berate him.  
the next time murphy saw octavia, she had a thin blue bandage wrapped around her wrist. she was telling their entire english class a wild story about a fight she had in the branches of the creepy local forest, an epic battle where she was shoved out of the treetops by a crazed monster. their entire class loved it. murphy didn’t bother to wave back at her.

two days later, it was a friday. alex murphy had left that morning for a week long work trip, which wasn’t too unusual for him, except for the fact that it was winter and he didn’t normally go away for long in the winter. as soon as he left, his twelve year old son wrapped the softest blanket they owned around his shoulders, used one of his father travel mugs to make hot cocoa and took a big leather bound book up to the treehouse at the end of the yard.

he had to awkwardly clamber his way up with only one hand, but it was worth it. the book wasn’t his own, it was just one he’d seen on their bookshelf for weeks, but the pretty golden swirls and italic letters coupled with the hard, worn leather was so enticing to him. he was never given adult books, and he supposed it was the most adult looking book he’d ever seen. when he opened it on the first page, he was a little disappointed to find out it was a poetry collection. poetry wasn’t for adults, poetry was for old, boring people. but he’d already brought it all the way there, and the picture books he normally kept had been moved very soon after octavia blake found his safe place, so he had nothing else to entertain himself. if he went to get a different book, his hot coca would be cold. 

it was hard to read a lot of the words. in fact, murphy understood nearly none of it. he stopped at a poem entitled ‘o me! o life!’ and closed the book hard after rereading the word ‘sordid’ fifteen times. just as he went to put it down and take the last sip of hot cocoa, someone knocked on the wood. he froze for a second, knowing it wouldn’t be his dad, but when he glanced at the frame of the door, it was just octavia blake. 

her bandages were torn at the edges by her palm, and the bright blue contrasted badly with her bright pink sweater, but murphy still thought she looked pretty. he didn’t even feel panicked or angry when she stepped inside, smile wide across her face. “this place is so cool.” she enthused, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes. “i can see why you’d be mad someone found it. can i sit down?” she pointed at the floor, and murphy wondered why she didn’t ask to use the empty deck chair in the corner, but he nodded nonetheless. “my brother doesn’t like you.”

murphy laughed, startling the girl in front of him. the treehouse was starting to get dark, since not much light shone through the plain square windows because of the leaves and branches surrounding them. “i did break your arm. he saw me.”

octavia shrugged at his words, and took two fingers to jab at her arm, ignoring the way murphy winced. “its fractured, and it doesn’t even hurt, see?” she prodded it again, and then made a small, pained noise. “okay, it doesn’t hurt much. it doesn’t matter though, because we’re friends now, john, and bellamy isn’t my mom so i don't have to listen to him. he's annoying anyway.” her older brother was called bellamy. what a strange choice of name.

murphy crumpled his nose up, light freckles hiding in the crinkles of his skin. “call me murphy, only my mom and teachers call me john.” octavia grinned a toothy grin, and held one of her hands up to mock salute him. 

“got it, murphy!” she giggled, and he thought that maybe making friends wasn’t all that overrated. “i think john is an old person name anyway. although you kind of seem like an old person.” murphy nearly shot an all too inappropriate insult at her, but stopped when he noticed her smile. she reached forward to lift up the leather bound book he’d been attempting to read, her eyes skimming across the title like gentle butterflies. “only old people like poetry. like you, and my brother. he acts like an old person too.” murphy wasn’t fond of bellamy already, but every time he’d seen octavia at home, other than their previous squabble, she was with him. he knew they were close, even if he didn’t really understand it. as much as he hoped she wouldn’t talk about him if they continued to hang out, he knew she would. “do you have any siblings?”

murphy shrugged, but he realised friendships weren’t made one-way, and he actually sort of liked octavia. “no, its just me.” he paused, considering. “how old is your brother?”. he’d heard his mom and dad talking to people, like their neighbours or old friends they ran into at the superstore. he understood the concept of small talk, and he was willing to attempt it if it meant that cool, popular, badass octavia blake would stay with him for a little longer. 

“he’s fourteen, he goes to arkadia high school.” she cracked open the book on a random page and instantly winced at the text. “can you understand this? you must be really smart. i know even bellamy struggles sometimes. he likes to pretend he doesn’t.” murphy felt a part of his chest spark, the electric feeling reaching his finger tips. he wanted to read the book and understand the words. “he’s explained some to me. i think its pretty, i like how the words sound but its so boring to me. do you find it easy?”

“um, no.” murphy shrugged, pressing his fingers into the warm leather when octavia closed it. “i just though it was interesting.”

octavia smiled, and sat back. “maybe bellamy would like you.”

they became inseparable quickly. normally, after school, the two of them would meet at the treehouse with armfuls of blankets and octavia would have a big flask of hot chocolate. sometimes they’d just sit and read, sometimes octavia would spin stories about her day and murphy would sit and listen. they spent all the time they could together at school too, but octavia was very well liked, whereas murphy preferred to stay quiet in fear of snapping at someone. 

on an odd day in late october, octavia invited murphy around to the blake house. he’d never even been in the backyard since he say belays protective icy glare, so actually going into the twin house was slightly terrifying. he hadn’t agreed at first, claiming he didn’t want to impose or burden them, but octavia just waved him off and said they could even it later if he really wanted (he didn’t, that’s the opposite of what he wanted). he gave in, because it was octavia asking, and he could never say no to her confidently. she was even more stubborn than him. 

when they reached the house, octavia told him it would just be him and her for a while, and bellamy once he got back from high school, but not their mom. murphy didn’t ask why. he didn’t ask about their dad, either.

when they de-boarded the bus and walked around the corner and down the street to the dead-end where their houses back onto the forest, murphy nearly instinctively asked if she wanted to go to the treehouse. he knew why she’d offered to let him come over, it was much too cold to huddle up behind the thin ply wood for much longer. plus, they were become practically siblings. although they didn’t talk about anything too serious, if someone at school pissed off murphy, octavia would walk over and take his hand and they’d sit in silence for strenuous amounts of time until she asked if he wanted to take the bus home. alternatively, if someone said something rude to octavia, murphy would shield her entire body with his tiny frame and bite insults at them until they backed off. 

murphy had never spoken to bellamy. since the day he fractured octavia’s wrist, he’d probably seen the taller, dark haired teen boy from afar a handful of times; down the street if they’d left school a little late for extra curricular reasons, or one time when they had stayed in the treehouse for a particularly long time and bellamy had been sat on the patio outside the blake’s back door. whenever murphy locked eyes with him, he looked annoyed. murphy wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him smile at all, really, so he had no idea if it was personal.

he learned that it was when bellamy arrived home from high school. he and octavia had been sat on the floor of the living room in the blakes house, and murphy’s entire body had been on fire with anxiety the entire time. octavia had noticed as soon as they got comfortable, and she hadn’t once let go of his hand. he tried to act like he was fine, giving her a weird look when she took it, trying to telepathically communicate ‘are you holding my hand for you?’. obviously, she wasn’t. her hand tightened on his the second the front door opened and bellamy blake walked in, declaring he was home in a bright tone that murphy would never be able to match to his face. he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a young boy sat in his living room, hand in his little sisters. 

“octavia.” bellamy deadpanned, his eyes narrowing on the —now shaking— boy. “who is this? who are you?”

“bellamy!” octavia dropped murphy’s hand in turn of standing up and rushing over to her older brother, nearly knocking him over with the force of a hug. all of her stories were about him, and she boasted about her smart, cool older brother all the time, but seeing him crack his cool exterior to smile and lightly hug her back was like a cool rush of water. murphy was jealous, really, he’d never have someone like that. “this is murphy. he’s my best friend. please don't be mean to him.” octavia had never called murphy her best friend before. he supposed she probably would’ve, given the chance, but he’d never heard it out loud. he probably would’ve gotten more emotional about it, if not for the fact her very scary brother was staring him down.

“would i ever?” bellamy gave a warm smile down at her, and murphy just caught a bright smile she sent his own way before he nervously looked back at bellamy, who seemed to be tearing him apart with his eyes. he was really tall, murphy noticed, despite the fact he was only fourteen (or fifteen?) at the time. he was fairly built, too, past the wiry frame of every other teenage boy. his hair was a very dark brown, as were his eyes, and murphy noticed a smattering of dark freckles on his face that he’d never been able to notice before. objectively, he was very attractive. “so, murphy.” bellamy dropped his arms from around his little sister and walked slowly over to the small circle of the living room. “you’re the one thats stolen my sister from me for the past two months.”

murphys mouth dropped open as he desperately tried to think of something to say, but with his snippy attitude all he could muster up was ‘yeah, that would be me’. he probably would have winced if not for the fact his pride was way too big to care. bellamy did not seem impressed at all. ocatavia thought it was hilarious. she laughed so hard murphy was sure she was actually crying, and then loudly exclaimed that she felt as if it was some sort of universe crossover, the two of them meeting, like jason vs. freddy. murphy felt his heart warm at the comparison; the 2003 slasher was her favourite film, does that make me her second favourite person?

“you’re a little shit.” bellamy directed at murphy, who shrugged and nodded in agreement. he never thought he’d ever even make bellamy smile, but the older teen threw his head back and laughed so much that when he looked back down, murphy could just catch the glitter of tears in the corner of his eyes. he dropped his black backpack on the floor next to the torn sofa and crashed onto it, his legs spread out in front of him. “how did you ever become friends with someone as sweet as o?” octavia shrieked at that, rushing over to bellamy once more, this time to thwack him hard on the back of his head. bellamy only laughed more, and that time, murphy joined in.

“you promised to be nice!”

“i did no such thing, o, don't lie to our guest.”

murphy paused, smiling a little. maybe he was self destructive in his answer, but he couldn’t help it. “i fractured her wrist by pushing her out of a tree.” bellamy instantly stopped grinning. he didn’t quite throttle the small twelve year old sat criss-cross on the rough, ugly carpet, but he did give him possibly the scariest look murphy had ever been on the receiving end of. 

“you fucking what?”

“murph!” octavia hissed at him, grabbing her brothers arm with all her might to stop him from launching at the smaller boy. bellamy didn’t put all his strength into breaking free, but he did lurch forward dangerously. murphy flinched back a little, even if he knew bellamy wouldn’t really hurt him, if he was from the same blood as octavia. “he didn’t mean to, b, it was an accident! really, it was my fault-“ octavia rambled, her tone turning to pleading. bellamy stopped for a second, leaning back into the sofa. 

“it wasn’t your fault. he pushed you, right? no excuses.” 

“i did push her. i don't like sharing.”

“you seem pretty happy to right now.” bellamy shot back, pointing to the floor where the two youngsters had been sharing a small, single packet of chips. murphy frowned, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. he hadn’t expected bellamy to like him at all, and he had caused the situation himself, but he hadn’t been prepared to be psychoanalysed (a word he couldn’t even spell). “what changed?”

“bellamy.” his younger sister spoke angrily now, with an actual bite to her tone. the darker haired teen stopped his interrogating and paused, eyeing the small, fragile boy carefully. he didn’t look like the time to push a defenceless girl out of the trees, with his skinny, malnourished appearance and shy glances. murphy thought that bellamy did look like the type to scare young kids for kicks, though. “murphy is my best friend, and you’re my brother. you have to be friends.”

bellamy wrinkled his nose. “no the fuck we don't.”

“language!”

“don't repeat it, o, i can say what i want.” bellamy bantered with her as if it was no effort. murphy wondered if she got her constant stream of talkativeness from him, but from the amount of times he’d seen bellamy walking alone or curled up in the top window on his lonesome, he didn’t seem like the social type. “but i do not have to be friends with this little punk that could’ve killed you. besides, he’s twelve.”

“so is she.” murphy offered. bellamy glared at him again, but murphy just stared back, more apathetic. 

“she’s my sister.”

“she is right here, and could kick both of your asses right now if you don’t shut up and get along. now, what movie are we all watching?” bellamy dropped his cold stare to look at his sister with such a shockingly contrasting fondness that murphy wondered if he could ever hate bellamy back. he didn’t realise he was already mirroring the fondness that he happened to be analysing. 

they all decided to start a boxset season of bbc’s merlin, and hence started a weekly tradition. 

murphy and bellamy never really absolved their issues with one another. they argued like no one else murphy had ever argued with, because there was no real bite, but they still shoved each other in the hallway when octavia wasn’t around, like they had a hidden feud no one could catch. murphy and octavia still spent a lot of time at the treehouse, but only a few hours a day before it got dark and they decided to camp out in the blake’s living room and watch obscure movies they found in bellamy’s thrifted collection on the bookshelf. often, the older teen would join them for the film. sometimes he’d have to explain as they watched, if it had allegorical historical meaning, or a plot that was simply too crazy to follow in their young minds. occasionally he’d sit on the floor with them, with octavia in the middle so he and murphy didn’t fight the entire time, but normally he sat on the sofa behind them and pretended to do his school work.

one time, octavia brought up the collection of poems that murphy still had hidden under his bed. he felt a little numb when she talked about it, and how she thought he was so cool to be reading stuff like that. bellamy seemed… interested. genuinely interested too, and confused, jokingly stating he didn’t even know murphy could read. he deserved the hard shoulder-to-chest check he got later on when murphy crossed past him to use the bathroom. 

that was another thing. bellamy was nearing his fifteenth birthday, and murphy was nearing his thirteenth, and yet bellamy was growing faster than murphy could ever imagine to. it pissed him off a fair bit, realising he’d most likely never get the satisfaction of looking down at the older teen the way bellamy did to him. he also only gained muscle the more days he spent extra time working out and playing for the high school basketball team he’d been inducted into in mid-november.

murphy never met aurora blake, and octavia never met either of his parents. his father was spending more and more time away from the house, and his mother began to drink more and more. murphy spent more and more time at the blakes, but he was okay with that part of it all. octavia was his little guardian angel, but he’d never admit it. 

at the end of november, octavia told him it was bellamy’s birthday that sunday. murphy wasn’t sure why she told him, considering she said that he wasn’t celebrating with his friends on the day and that murphy could still come over if he wished to. he wished she didn’t, because he got off the bus in the middle of town that day, telling her he had a dentist appointment and they could hang out later. it would feel wrong to go to their house without at least a card, he told himself as he walked down the bustling city centre in hopes of a cheap gift for a fifteen year old boy that all he had in common with was their mutual distaste for one another.

he was giving up hope when he passed the fourteenth hot dog stand with a bald man serving. a little disappointed he’d walked all the way for nothing, he opted to at least go into his favourite bookstore, as if he could even read half the titles. the store was a tiny used book reselling store nestled quietly in between two different thrift stores, barely noticeable other than the retro metal sign that hung above the door. it only was murphy’s eyes landed on a whole table of beautifully bound novels through the window that he remembered yes, he and bellamy did in fact have something in common, however differentiating their situations were. bellamy loved reading. he was more enthusiastic about literature and poetry than perhaps anything else, and murphy was also intrigued at the workings of fictional stories and written art. with a newfound confidence in his idea, murphy strutted through the open door to the customer service desk at the front. the old man behind it was very familiar with the young boy in front of him.

“hey kiddo.” he greeted kindly, limbs shifting slowly so he could properly face the young boy that could see over the counter a lot easier than he previously remembered. murphy smiled in return.

“i’m sorry, i’m in kind of a rush today.” he paused, feeling comfortable in the environment and the gentle stare of mr. keating behind the desk. “do you remember my friend octavia? its her brothers birthday this weekend. i kind of hate him but he lets me stay and he hasn’t beaten me up yet so i think i need to get him something.”

keating laughed, so warm and cliche that murphy felt he was in a coming of age movie, just a few years too young. he wasn’t even really old, octavia just liked to call him the old bookstore man because he gave of the radiance of an old wise wizard, or like the dragon from merlin, kilgharrah. “i think thats the most you’ve ever talked to me in one go.” murphy grinned shyly. “your looking for a book? what kind does your friend like?” keating asked, rounding the desk to be able to leave it. 

“he is not my friend,” murphy stated grumpily, kicking at the floor. “he really likes poetry. and he loves fantasy. the only time he’ll sit with me and octavia when he gets back from a basketball game is if we put merlin on, —you’ve seen that, right? its really good— otherwise he says he's way too tired.” murphy felt a little bit like octavia, with his constant run on speech. he never rally got the opportunity to speak about bellamy, or even octavia, because they were really the only people he talked to in general, besides his dad. but his dad hadn’t been around much to hear about just how close murphy had grown to octavia, and subsequently bellamy. lamentably, keating was probably his only other friend. 

mr. keating made an amused noise, and murphy walked in tandem with him to the poetry section. “poetry is very broad, wonderfully. do you know what he likes? romantic, conflict…?” keating spoke in simple words to murphy. at first, it had annoyed him, but one time he overheard the man talking on the phone to someone and had felt a little gratitude because keating used words in every sentence that he’d never even heard of before. 

murphy frowned. “no, i dont. we talked about it once but o got bored so i guess ive never asked.” murphy didn’t make a mental point to ask in the future. “fantasy fiction, though. he loves that. i remember he said he loves magic systems and complicated worlds?” murphy trailed off ineptly, rinsing words he’d heard bellamy use one late night when they’d all been too tired to hold their filter the way they usually did. it had been peaceful, listening to the usually rather brooding teen wax poetic about his favourite genre. keating grinned down at his regular customer. 

“i have just the thing. i hope your friend hasn’t read these.”

from a high shelf, keating brought down a rather large boxset of a series that murphy struggled to read the title of. “mistborn.” the adult supplied helpfully, crossing back to the desk and setting them down. “do you know if he's read them?” murphy tried to rack his brain of that one night, listing through the keywords he remembered bellamy mentioning. he shook his head, and then shrugged. “then they’ll be perfect. each book is seven dollars, and the full series is twenty one dollars. i can hold them if you need.”

murphy reached into the front pocket of his bag, where he kept his loose change that was normally used for lunch money. he’d have to steal odd bits from octavia for the following week, but she wouldn’t mind. there was a whole seventeen dollars that he counted out on the desk of the bookstore. he made a soft noise of annoyance, and went to collect the change up, but stopped when keating swiped it all into the cashier and gently pushed the boxset over. “for your friend.” 

murphy grinned so hard the entire way back to sanctum street that he thought his face would split in half. 

by the time sunday came, he had managed to crappily wrap the box in some coloured tissue paper that he stole from the art supply closet on friday. he wrote a note that he made his dad proof read four times before he taped it to the box, and when alex asked if the present was for his friend octavia, murphy laughed giddily. his dad had gotten home the same night he bought the box set, and had asked if murphy could even read them. 

it had stung a little at the time, but probably only because his dad had been away a lot. he knew his father meant no harm, he was the only person in the entire world that wouldn’t even wish to jokingly insult his son. murphy brought him up to speed on the whole situation with the blakes, including his ongoing feud with bellamy. “i don't know, john.” his dad said through a bright, wicked smile, “seems that you like him to me.” murphy had been so outraged at the idea that he voiced he might not even give the ‘selfish, arrogant, careless asshole’ the present at all. he hadn’t realised he’d sworn until alex face passed with shock. when he went to apologise, he realised it wasn’t even the swear word that had caught his dad off guard at all. 

“you’ve been reading.” alex spoke matter-of-factly. murphy shrugged, trying to act as if it weren’t a big deal. his dad was the only person that knew it was.

“not much to do in the treehouse on my own all the time.”

“it sounds like you haven’t been on your own for weeks.”

murphy grinned.

he carried the box of books over by himself on sunday morning, shivering in the cold november air. his coat of the prior few years had finally grown too small for him, so he was swamped in one of his dads dark sweaters that reached his thighs, but he was too buzzed with excitement to care. he didn’t really know why; he didn’t like bellamy. maybe it was just out of spite to see his dumb, shocked expression when he opened the genuinely thoughtful gift. 

octavia answered the door, her eyes a little sad but brightening when she saw him. then, they landed on the box, and she smiled so hard murphy could see her canines. “quick, get in! he’s just grabbing a hoodie and then were doing presents.” internally, the younger boy was glad that bellamy hadn’t opened anything at all yet. “if you put it in the pile, you can properly surprise him. even i didn’t think you’d get him anything.” the two giggly twelve year olds crowded into the living room, and murphy noticed a distinct lack of presents and family. a far away part of his brain wondered if that was what his upcoming birthday was going to be like. he was glad to be able to add to the collection of then four presents. he tried not to think about how his was the biggest. 

when bellamy came down the rickety stairs, his hair a mess and his eyes smudged with a dark grey, he actually smiled at the sight of murphy. “couldn’t even escape you on my birthday? how cursed i must be.”

murphy rolled his eyes, holding up his middle finger behind octavias back so he didn’t get scolded for swearing in front of her. “you look like shit.” that kind of defeated the point, but whatever, it was worth it to feel the familiar rush of satisfaction at the clearly annoyed expression on bellamys dumb face. octavia laughed smugly beside murphy. 

“he got drunk last night, by the l tracks with miss griffins daughter and some other girls.” murphy mock-gasped, and laughed when octavia had a pillow thrown at her with no real force. for once, bellamy joined them on the carpet, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “he says they’re not dating but i dont believe him.”

“she doesn’t even like guys, o.” bellamy deadpanned, reaching a hand over to mess up her morning hair. octavia more or less hissed. “and anyway, that would be like me saying you guys are dating.” they elicited exaggerated throwing up sounds from both of the younger kids, and bellamy’s loud laughter echoed through the thin walls of the blake household. he surrendered eventually, and octavia forced the first box into his hands, trying to pass the weird comment over. 

“whos it from?” murphy asked, however much he didn’t care. it was polite.

“clarke.” bellamy answered, like murphy knew who that was. he wondered if she was miss griffins daughter, or one of the other girls. when the delicate wrapping was torn away, a small wooden box was revealed. it had intricate markings on it, and when bellamy opened it he gasped. murphy didn’t really understand what was so special about the small leather book and the other things he couldn’t quite see. “its all tolkien themed, holy crap. sorry o.” bellamy caught himself instinctively. tolkien… was the author of lord of the rings. the biggest fantasy series possibly ever. duh. 

the book, later revealed, was a beautifully published ‘a dictionary of tolkien’. inside the box there was also a small bag that bellamy opened to bring out a thin chain with three charms on it: one was a small silver blade that had a duck-egg blue stone in the middle, another was a small rounded door, and the last was a detailed compass. it was stunning, really. lastly in the box was a gift voucher to the nearest barnes and nobles, which was also very cute. murphy had never seen bellamy so emotional in his entire life, and faintly heard him muttering about how rich clarke is without any heat or envy, just as a fact.

he opened the one from octavia next, since it was in a small bag rather than a box, eyeing the one that had been so badly wrapped. inside the gift bag were two things. firstly, there was a hand painted bookmark that murphy had sat beside her as she designed and made for two weeks in lunchtimes at school. it was very clearly made by a not so artistic child, but it was still pretty, with hills and a sunset sky and a quote that murphy didn’t quite get. it was cute, and sentimental. the next thing he took out was a dvd for a film murphy had never heard of either. bellamy laughed though, and murphy wondered if he was crying, at the shaky pattern of his breaths. when he went to thank his sister, she held up a hand and grinned. murphy didn’t know about the third present she prepared, but when she leant behind the coffee table and pulled out a small cactus, he laughed with bellamy. “monty gave it to me, he said they’re really hard to kill.”

“perfect.” bellamy grinned, gently putting the little pot on the floor. he pulled octavia into a tight hug, and didn’t let go until she was giggling and squealing. murphy felt like he was imposing a little bit.  
“wait, what?” bellamy asked once he’d sat back after octavias loud protests that he let her go. “who’s this one from?” octavia picked up the box for him, her small hands wrapping around the multi layered, multi coloured tissue paper. bellamy briefly glanced at murphy, but then quickly looked away. murphy stared stubbornly at the floor as the older teen read the note on top. “murph?” the nickname rolled off bellamys tongue so easily that the younger boy looked back up in pure shock. 

“surprise?” he offered shakily. bellamy gaped at him, and dint look away until octavia shoved him roughly. 

once the paper was torn away, bellamy gasped audibly. he turned the boxset over in his hands to read the series summary on the side, the summary he’d read online so many times before. “murphy, what the fuck? how did you get this edition? ive wanted this for years.” the crushing weight of relief sank onto the young boys shoulders, but he tried desperately to not let it show, choosing instead to just shrug and pick at the cotton of his dads sweater sleeve. he tried to ignore the prideful feeling in his stomach. mentally, he sent a thank you message made of smoke to mr. keating at the old bookstore. “this is amazing.”

bellamys soft voice broke his internal panic, and murphy zoned back in on his face. the box was in front of him now, and for a second murphy thought the older teen was going to hug him. he wasn’t disappointed at all when he didn’t. the moment passed quickly, and soon octavia was stood behind her kneeling brother, fastening the dainty necklace from clarke around his neck. the thin silver and elegantly carved charms didn’t really match up with bellamys broodish, grubby nature, but they complimented it. murphy hoped he never took it off as bellamys soft brown eyes stared into his own.

the celebrations after were nothing far from their usual. they ate a pizza that would be normally a tad too expensive, and they drank pop that bellamy would normally cut them off of fairly quickly, and then they crashed and watched almost six whole episodes of merlin. bellamy only got up to turn it off when they heard octavia’s gentle snoring in between them. when the show was paused, murphy gently stood up from the couch, so to not disturb octavia, and went to excuse himself. bellamy cut him off though. “ill walk you back to your house.”

“i live next door.”

“so, you brat? we live in a bad neighbourhood, and you’re built like a breadstick.” murphy was too tired to bother arguing. he didn’t even bother to put his shoes on, holding them by the backs of the ankles in one hand and waiting quietly as bellamy shifted octavia around on the sofa so she was laying across the length of it, now with a soft blanket over her shoulders. bellamy didn’t put on a jacket or shoes, even though it was raining outside. he opened the door and waited on the porch for murphy to follow him out, staying still until the front door was closed, and the two of them were stood in the cold dark, listening to the sound of rain hitting the concrete sidewalk. “i wanted to say thank you. you’re not as much of an asshole as i thought.”

“octavia made me bring it.”

bellamy laughed, gently pushing murphy forward to lead the way. “i still hate you m, dont worry.”

murphy didn’t think much about the nickname, he really didn’t.

his dad was sat on the front stairs with his head in his hands when they rounded the corner. bellamy hesitated, but murphy cut him off, the warm feeling of the situation disappearing completely. “you can go. i live next door.” he said, as if they weren’t stood right in front of his own home for once, watching his dads shoulders shake. bellamy nodded slowly, and murphy pushed him with as much strength as he harmlessly could when he didn’t move. neither of them said anything, and bellamy returned home.

that night was the same night murphys parents officially split up. he supposed it was the beginning of the end for their pathetic attempt at the american dream, the white picket fence life. when his dad explained it all to him, he cried. he demanded to know why, but his dad had pushed the small fists that battered his chest away, speaking in such a pained tone that just made murphy cry more. when he’d cried himself out, he collapsed into his dads arms and asked if they’d still all be living together. he wasn’t stupid, he knew what would happen, even when his dad didn’t answer at all. he knew what was happening when he woke up that monday to see empty cardboard boxes, and he knew what happened when he returned home from school to see the boxes gone, along with half of the objects in the house; the ones that actually made it home.

when he asked his mom where he would be going, she didn’t answer. he yelled at her, and she yelled back. his dad was gone, at least for a while. she didn’t tell him where, or really why, she just sat staring dead ahead at the cracked tiles in the kitchen wall that alex was supposed to fix during the imposing christmas break, sipping wine from a pint glass.

murphy lit his dads sweater on fire. he didn’t really know why, he wasn’t even angry at his dad. he was angry at his mom, and the world, and maybe his dad for leaving him behind but not for the situation. he cried so hard into his pillow that he was nearly sick, and when he thought about going to see the blakes he actually did throw up. the thought of their crammed house, wall to wall bookshelves filled with bellamy’s thrifted dvds and books, auroras trinkets shed collected on high shelves and every counter possible, octavia’s paintings and hand crafted diy creations. he thought of his own house, stripped bare to look like an ugly show home. 

by the time the flames grew high enough that it was concerning, murphy could hear his mom screaming at him in the doorway. yeah, maybe it was stupid to light a fire inside his bedroom at twelve o’clock on a monday night, but he didn’t think it warranted having to sit on the front porch for at least an hour as a punishment. 

he didn’t feel like crying by then. he only felt angry. he buried his face in his hands and thought of his dad on bellamy’s birthday, paralleling his exact position. he thought of the way his shoulders shook like he was weak, the opposite alex murphy that his son had grown up idolising. he thought of bellamy’s hesitance, the expression of pity that he hadn’t seen but he knew was there. he thought of one thousand angry moths inside him, barrelling towards the hot red light of utter rage inside his stomach. he thought of breaking something, and it was all he could think about. he couldn’t breathe until one of the railings on the front steps to number four sanctum street had been shot to splinters from the force of the usually decorative chair that he repeatedly brought down on the barrier until it was splinters and jagged palisade. he screamed so hard that his throat felt raw, and when he stopped he was so exhausted that he collapsed.

half an hour later, he felt warm hands on his upper arms, and jerked away so hard that he fell back onto a sharp piece of wood that scratched his forearm. warm brown eyes looked down at him curiously. 

“bellamy.” he greeted, no usual playful bite in his tone. his voice sounded hoarse, for an twelve year old.

“hi.” bellamy returned. “its two in the morning.”

“so?”

“its tuesday.”

“so?”

“you have school tomorrow. you’re twelve.”

murphy sniffed, rather than replying immediately. he was freezing, he realised, and so incredibly tired. he was still a sickly pale from when he vomited too, and his hair was stuck to his forehead. “thought id come annoy you. decided the porch was more comfy”. irritatingly, bellamy didn’t take the bait, but he didn’t move either. 

“our sofa is even more comfy than your porch, i bet.” murphy rolled his eyes, closing them, and wrapped his arms around his elbows. “we also have hot chocolate.” fuck, that sounded good. murphy opened a single eye and stared accusingly at his best friends older brother.

“you’ve pulled my leg.” 

he’d never stayed overnight at the blakes house before. since he’d never met their mom, it felt somewhat wrong, like he was imposing. he knew enough about her to write a novel, but he’d never spoken to her, so sleeping on her sofa when he felt on the edge of vomiting seemed a little rude. but a hot chocolate before he snuck out to catch a couple hours sleep did sound good. 

he didn’t get that far, sadly. bellamy told him to sit on the sofa as soon as they got inside, and informed him that their mom was working overnight somewhere. murphy didn’t ask where, he just leant back into the cushions and let his feet dangle over the seams, just barely touching the floor. when bellamy returned, he had two mugs of something sweet smelling, like cinnamon and mixed spice, and a packet of antiseptic wipes. he put the mugs on the coffee table silently, and sat beside murphy. their banter and their hatred was almost forgotten, other than the lingering effect of awkwardness, but murphy was too tired to care as the older teen wiped blood away from the cuts on his fingers. when he was finished, he passed the mug of hot chocolate to murphy, who could smell the coffee in bellamy’s from next to him. he didn’t ask. he never asked.

sometime in the silence, bellamy put the first episode of merlin on their shitty box tv, turning the volume to the lowest audible setting. he passed murphy a blanket, and tucked himself under a different one. when their drinks were finished, he took the empty mugs to the kitchen and returned to the living room. he turned the tv off, but sat back on the sofa. the silence was strangling both of them. 

“what happened?” bellamy asked in a murmur, like he was afraid murphy would tear into a million pieces of splintered railing. the younger boy bit the corner of his tongue, small hands shaking in the fabric of the fluffy blanket. he shrugged.

“my dad left. i set something on fire. got locked out, ‘cus im twelve.” for a while, bellamy didn’t say anything. he didn’t even huff a laugh at the sad little joke. 

“you can stay here whenever you want, you know.” bellamys voice was a gentle he’d never heard before, not even with octavia. realistically he knew it was because he felt guilty, or pitiful, or both, and that was horrible. but his kind tone was intoxicating, and murphy couldn’t indulge himself in it enough. he didn’t dare try another failed attempt at humour, he didn’t want to break the quiet peaceful aroma that shielded them from the harsh outside world. he loved octavia, more than he loved possibly anyone else in the world, but he was gad she was asleep. he didn’t enjoy being smothered, and her kindness didn’t come in the same tranquil form of her brothers. “o would hate me if i left your ass to freeze outside, so… the sofa is always free.”

when murphy finally forced himself to look at the older teen, the weight of bellamys clement eyes bearing his soul almost brought him to tears. he felt like a wild animal sometimes; one fierce hug of protection away from biting at the people he loved. solace was found in the treehouse, and bellamy blakes gentle nature. “thank you.” he whispered, before he could stop himself, hands tying into knots and curling into his stomach. 

bellamy didn’t leave him alone. bellamy moved to the small tattered seat next to the sofa, took his blanket with him, and waited until murphys soft tireless breaths evened out. bellamy was there when he woke up to the sound of octavia excited and extremely confused.

the weeks went on like that. sometimes john would go home and the freckled fifteen year old would check the front porch at almost midnight and force the kid to have a hot drink and sleep on the sofa. sometimes he’d stay at home, and barricade his door to block out his mothers drunken rambling. sometimes he would visit his dad in the next town over, and octavia would make him call every night until he was home. it was nice, to have that kind of close routine. 

he met aurora two weeks on from the first night, but it had been brief. she was there a few times when he stayed, normally arriving a little before bellamy brought him in and went to bed almost straight after. she was always gone when he woke up. his birthday passed, the big thirteen, but it didn't feel special.

his disputes with the older blake sibling continued as normal. they wouldn’t talk much whenever bellamy brought him in, but sometimes they’d shove at each other and make biting remarks. in the daytime they pretended as if nothing had changed: octavia went back to making jokes about them smothering each other in their sleep, bellamy would always give murphy the most burned food and would make little digs at him being an asshole, and murphy would, well, be an asshole. 

months passed easily. murphys parents didn’t rekindle the way he’d been secretly hoping. they barely even looked at each other whenever alex would come to pick his son up for the holidays or an odd weekend. his mom drank more and more, and the railing on the front porch never got fixed. the walls in the treehouse stayed ply, and the shelves in the house stayed bare.

he was sitting in his bedroom when he found out his dad had been shot. 

octavia had a birthday party to go to —one of the girls from school that murphy hated— and bellamy had taken her there, so murphy was alone for once. he didn’t really feel like going to the treehouse, it stung a little to be there for a while and it still felt bitter. it was starting to get hot out again, so he had his window opened as wide as it could go, warm sticky air rushing inside and tousling his hair. it was getting long, long enough that it covered his eyes if he didn’t push it back enough. he heard the commotion on the street before he was forced into it, but he assumed it was the rowdy family that lived opposite himself and the blakes twin houses.

it was only when there was a sharp knock at the door that he realised maybe it would involve them too. a broken pipe in the street perhaps? or maybe the government finally decided to knock down their shitty street block, replace it with higher class houses and gentrify the south side. he’d learnt the word from bellamy when they passed the big superstore that used to be a locals bar on their way home. 

his mom wasn’t home, so murphy was left to answer the door himself. he always got nervous when he answered, scared it would be cps and he’d have no choice but to go with them. or maybe it would be his dad. when he opened the big, knackered bolt door, he faced two police officers and his heart sank. he looked over to the blakes house, where one back room light was on, but there were no signs of anyone moving around. the officers started talking before he could ask anything himself.

“hi sweetie, are you john murphy?” the tall, lithe woman to the left asked. she had blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her voice dripped with fake sympathy. he bit back a rude remark and nodded, simply. “is your mom here? we need to sit down with you both.” when he shook his head again, that time a no, the two police officers shared a look and murphy could feel the anxiety in his stomach raising to hot flames. 

they told him what happened. they sat him down on the front porch and explained mostly all of it, which was pretty fucked up to tell a thirteen year old but he supposed it was protocol and better than sugarcoating it. his dad was shot, by an officer who thought he was stealing. he wasn’t, but he was dead. he bled out before the paramedic team could do anything. murphy threw up into the bush behind the non-broken railing before they could finish telling him the whole story. he didn’t give a shit about the whole story, all that really mattered was that the one person he felt utterly comfortable and safe with was dead. 

when he could breathe again, they tried to take him to the station. yet again, he reasonably knew it was protocol, but the idea of sitting in the police station waiting for what, his mom? she wouldn’t show anyway. he needed octavia and bellamy, but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth before the two officers tried to gently force him to get into the station wagon that was parked in the usually empty drive of the residence. he trashed back at them so hard that he was sure he make at least one of them bleed, kicking his legs out until they backed off. he didn’t know what to do, they weren’t leaving without him but he’d fight tooth and nail before he willingly left. 

“hey, murph!” a voice called out from the street, and his whole demeanour shattered. his entire body was shaking and he knew he’d be sobbing if not for the small crowd that had gathered on the street, nosy onlookers peering out from their doors and the sidewalk that they walked on. bellamy was stood in the few feet between the two houses, house keys in one hand and a grocery store bag in the other. without thinking, murphy pushed past the officers and ran to the older teen, nearing knocking him over with a hug. without thinking, bellamy dropped the bag and wrapped an arm around the younger boy, pulling him close against his chest. murphy didn’t cry, but he already felt humiliated. they were supposed to hate each other, and yet he had to do anything to get away from the officers. 

“please get them the fuck away from me,” he seethed miserably into the soft cotton of bellamy’s shirt, his tiny fists curling into the fabric so hard that it dug into skin. “please, i cant go to the station. i cant.”

bellamy hushed him, the hand that still held his house keys hooked over one finger reaching up to rub at murphys shoulders gently. “wait on the porch. i won’t let them, okay? i won’t.” murphy nodded, but he didn’t pull away for another half a minute. when he did, he only glanced up for a second, too embarrassed to look bellamy in the eyes properly. the poetry geek had no idea what the hell was happening, after all, he probably just assumed that murphy did something reckless and was trying to escape. when he stepped around bellamy, he gently picked up the forgotten grocery bag and walked over to the porch, ignoring the way the officers yelled at him.

he sat on the second step of the porch, peeking around the corner of the untouched railing to see bellamy arguing with them. he’d grown so much since his birthday that he was as tall as both of the officers, if not more so, and forcibly held an arm out to stop the woman when she tried to breach him and reach murphy. he couldn’t quit hear what they were saying, but he could hear the vicious bite of bellamy’s genuine anger that he’d only heard a few times. eventually, he watched as the officers returned to their station wagon, and bellamy stood on the curb of the sidewalk until they drove away down the street, arms crossed over his chest like he was a solid wall to be broken through, murphy on the other side. 

when they were gone, bellamy walked over and sat beside him on the porch. “i told them your mom was at work, and that i always looked after you when she was.” he said simply, and murphy noticed the way he was digging the keys into his palm, the way his hands were shaking in the same waver as his voice. “i was going to ask if you wanted to get pizza at thirty second tonight. feeling up to it still?” murphy let out a small laugh and knocked his shoulder into bellamy’s, although it directed more at his arm than anything.

“not if you put fucking pineapple on it again.” bellamy gasped dramatically, feigning a heart attack that murphy just couldn’t help but giggle at. he looked ridiculous, all worn down from a long day at high school and basketball practise, his hair wild and his eyes sad. it was comforting to pretend like nothing was wrong, even if he knew they couldn’t do it for long. “thirty second sounds good.”

“we can grab o on the way. i don’t think she really wanted to be there anyway.” and so they did. bellamy paid for his bus fair, and they grabbed octavia from the fancy country club on the outskirts of the north side. she seemed confused as to why they got her early, but she claimed to hate every girl there anyway (murphy knew she didn’t, she said it for him because he hated every girl there). he told her about his dad. she cried for him, as they sat on the bus back to the southside, taking it to thirty second pizza store. 

it was a really shitty place, but they went there whenever they could scrape enough money together or something really bad happened. murphy guessed his dad being shot dead in the mall was something really bad. octavia held his hand the entire time, cracking jokes over slices of pizza and kicking bellamys feet under the table whenever he and murphy bantered for too long. bellamy got up to talk to someone at the cashier about half way through, and when he sat down he had a light smile. he told them he got a job there, at thirty second, which was a terrible name for a family run pizza store, but all three of them celebrated as much as they could.  
he started his first shift on monday, bellamy explained, unless they needed him for something. apparently thats where he’d been in between taking octavia to the country club. murphy faintly wondered how much money the multiple bus fairs and the pizza had cost him altogether, and he wondered if he should steal some cash from his moms secret hiding spot to pay for at least some of it. he felt awful freeloading off them, and he’d been doing it enough in those leading months anyway. 

when they arrived back at sanctum street, the sky was a dark, deep blue that only meant it was a late night in the spring. murphy slowed his pace as they reached the two houses, opening his mouth to say goodbye to them, but bellamy gently took his arm to stop him. the lights were on in murphys house, all of them, making it glow like a beacon on the street of conscientious power savers dipped in poverty. octavia was still humming to herself, kicking the sidewalk as she ambled towards her own front door. she stopped when she noticed the two boys had, and her face fell a little. “o, can you go put the kettle on? i’ll only be a minute, i promise.” bellamy promised a lot. murphy couldn’t think of a time when he’d broke his promises. without her usual protest, octavia nodded and took the house keys. 

“im coming with you.” bellamy declared, setting his eyes back on the small boy in front of him. “you cant stop me, im bigger than you. we can go see… see your mom, and then you can come over and watch merlin with me and o. its been a few days and i wanna finish season three again. yeah?”

disheartened, murphy agreed. he assumed bellamy would back out the second he entered anyway. the blakes were as broke as everyone else on the street, sure, but murphys house was something else. they didn’t normally have the lights on because they couldn’t afford the electricity bill, and he couldn’t even imagine feeling the heating or ac on in his own home. with baited breath, he lead bellamy up the splintered wooden porch steps and passed the broken chair and up to the door, where his hands shook as he opened it slowly. 

his mom was in the kitchen, and stared at the door as soon as it opened. she opened her mouth with a mean snarl the second she saw her son, but faltered at the sight of a tall teenager behind him. bellamy cleared his throat. “hi, mrs. murphy, im-“

“ms.” she corrected him, miserably. 

bellamy paused. “right, sorry. im bellamy blake, i live next door. murph- uh, john, is friends with my little sister. i was just wondering if it would be okay if he stayed with us tonight.” murphy had never heard him so shy, and he didn’t know if its because she was his mom who he’d most likely never even seen before, or if its because she was a widow of approximately eight hours. his mom waved them off, laughing sickly. murphy could smell whiskey from the front door, and his arms itched at the desperate need to escape. 

“sure, whatever, he’s never here anyway. why you askin’ today? cus’ his dad died?”

murphy could feel bellamy flinch, and he himself took the smallest step back until his shoulder met bellamy’s arm. the older teen gently reached around him to hold his arm, somewhat comfortingly, somewhat protectively. he really wished he’d fought bellamy about it, wished he’d left the older teen outside and gone over later, or locked him out and barricaded himself in his room like he always did. things were just getting back to normal, they were supposed to be getting better. “normally you’re not here.” bellamy stated bluntly, and murphy felt his whole body freeze. he dug his shoulder into bellamys side just as his mom angrily stood up from the table.

“what did you just fuckin say to me? about my son?” 

“im just saying,” bellamy braced, pulling murphy back against him as far as he could as the intoxicated woman stumbled closer. “no disrespect, he spends a lot of time with us. normally we grab his stuff and go, but it felt polite to ask since you’re here. normally you’re working.”

esther murphy stopped in her tracks. she narrowed her eyes at him, and pointed an accusing finger at his chest. murphy stepped more central in front of him, as if he would protect strong, tall bellamy with his own skinny, short frame. “you better hurry up.”

and so they did. bellamy followed him up the stairs despite the younger boys icy cold glare, and into his empty room. there was a set of drawers that murphy haphazardly half emptied into his school bag, and his two big books of poetry that he couldn’t even read. other than that, it was just empty, plain furniture. a little while after his dad had left, murphy had torn down mostly all remnants of him left in the room. posters, the shitty dyslexia targeted books, little trinkets from his jobs away. some of it he burnt in a fire, and other things he smashed down in the woods with the biggest branches he could find. 

“this looks like a prison cell.”

“fitting for me.” murphy retorted sharply, zipping up his bag and ignoring the way it caught on the fabric inside. “can we go?”

esther wasn’t in the kitchen when they got back downstairs. murphy didn’t care to find out where she had gone, he just strode straight past bellamy and out the front door. he was fucking angry, at all of them. he wasn’t even sure why, but the whole day had been so terribly embarrassing and his fucking dad had died. he didn’t want to cry, or to freak out, and the only way he really knew how to channel his emotions was through rage. he didn’t check to see if bellamy was following him, even when he walked directly into the blakes house feeling like such a burden that he considered sleeping in the treehouse alone. 

he didn’t though, just because octavias kind eyes greeted him as soon as he shut the door and walked into their living room, seeing her sat on the sofa criss-cross facing the door, like she’d been waiting for him. her eyes landed on his bag, and she stretched her arms out in a ‘gimme’ childish kind of way. he couldn’t help but smile, and felt her instantly damper his anger. he dropped his bag on the floor beside the sofa and collapsed onto it, letting her smother him just that one time. she began immediately talking animatedly about her time at the country club and traded her fingers through his hair until the buzz of fury under his skin subsided enough that he didn’t care when he heard the front door open and close a whole five minutes later. she talked about the girls (“raven is really cool, she’s like us. i actually think you’d love her, she argued with all of the other girls there because they made fun of her for wearing jeans. it was amazing, you should’ve seen it.”) and about the big fancy food table and the huge chandelier. 

murphy didn’t even realise it’d been raining outside until he shivered in octavia’s arms and she pointed it out. kindly, she opened his bag for him and hunted through it for a hoodie, but turned up with nothing. with a frustrated sigh at her best friends rash packing, she claimed shed be right back and jumped off the sofa to run upstairs. murphy bit his nail and didn’t turn around to face the open plan kitchen behind the sofa. “why did you take so long?” bellamy didn’t answer. he was unpacking groceries, packing them in the cupboards silently. “i dont… i dont need you to protect me. i can protect myself.” murphy bit, finally turning around to stare down the much taller teen.

bellamy didn’t look at him, but he did answer. “you’re like, eleven.”

“thirteen.”

“murphy, you’re fucking… you’re so young. you’re my sisters best friend, and she’s my responsibility so i cant let anything happen to you.” bellamy argued back, slamming a tin of something onto the counter. he eventually looked over, frustration set deep in his eyes, but not for the small boy sat on the sofa. it wasn’t fair, any of it. it wasn’t fair that both of their families had to struggle just to be able to pay for the food they ate, and it wasn’t fair that murphy’s dad was shot like a wild animal, but it happened. 

“i lived my whole life without you before, i can do it now.” murphy averred, feeling the shock wave of anger building inside him once more. “you’re barely even older than me, you’re still a fucking child but you take on looking after o and paying the bills so im pretty sure i can deal with my dads death myself, you fucking… you asshole.”  
bellamy deflated. “you’re right. im sorry.” he sighed, closing his eyes and splaying his hands across the counter like he was trying to ground himself. he looked too old for a fifteen year old. “i dont think ive ever met a thirteen year old who talks like you do.”

“what, cus im so smart?” murphy forced down the desperate need to break something inside of him.

“no, because you swear way too much. now shut up and watch your goddamn show.” bellamy smiled softly, and went back to putting away the groceries like nothing happened when he heard the creaking of the stairs as octavia skipped down them. murphy rolled his eyes, but he turned around to face the tv that he hadn’t even realised was playing something. 

“this is bells but he doesn’t mind, right b?” 

“what?” her older brother demanded, without any real bite. he noticed the hoodie and murphys pale skin and damp hair and the way he shivered. “as long as i don’t get fleas.”

murphy almost refused the hoodie, but he was fucking freezing and blankets only did so much. plus, octavia seemed to know, and glared at him before he could even get the chance to refuse. he shook his head at her, but stood up and took the hoodie from her hands, and quietly asked if there was someplace he could change. he knew where the bathroom was of course, but it felt rude to not ask. octavia pointed in the vague direction, and he grabbed a pair of sweatpants before leaving. 

the hoodie was a deep blue with a white-silver arkadia basketball team logo on the front, and bellamy’s surname and number on the back. murphy considered if he’d ever bother with high school sports, but he doubted he’d even bother too much with high school in general. he felt kind of cool in the prideful hoodie though. he felt something pull at his chest else when he turned in the mirror until he could see ‘blake’ across his narrow shoulder blades.

the rest of the night was… strange. they drank a lot of hot chocolate and watched a lot of merlin until late into the night when bellamy said they didn’t have to go to school the next morning, and normally octavia would have shrieked with happiness but she just yawned and said okay and pulled murphy closer to her until his head was on her shoulder and the pile of blankets covered both their bodies. she felt asleep quite quickly, but murphy didn’t. 

he started absentmindedly at the rerun of merlin, not caring that they’d all seen the show so many times they could quote it. bellamy was still awake, sat in the tattered armchair, texting someone. murphy doesn’t even remember him getting a phone, but it wasn’t much. just a shitty flip one with buttons on one side and a crappy screen on the other. he wasn’t even watching the tv, too invested in whatever conversation was happening on the closer screen. 

murphy yawned quietly, settling into octavias shoulder. maybe things would be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “bunny is a coward scam artist and richard is just as pretentious as the rest of them.” his gaze locked with bellamy, who narrowed his eyes like he was trying to solve murphy; like he was a puzzle that needed fitting together. the last piece clicked into place, and a soft smile followed the way excitement at finishing a jigsaw would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought id get another chapter out before christmas, but early yule was so busy and ive been in a bit of a slump. happy belated holidays 
> 
> p.s. i forgot that bellamy was on the basketball team, instead of football, until about 6k words in. i did proofread to check id switched it all to basketball but i might have missed parts, apologies if i did. i didn't proofread this even once after that though :)

when john murphy turned fourteen, he went to his first high school party. by the time he was fifteen, he’d been to too many to count. 

he was never much one for lots of people and thick, sweaty crowds full of over-drunk, underage teenagers all desperate to get off and forget who they were for a mere few hours. he did like the alcohol, and he really liked the excuse to get drunk on a weekday, but he didn’t enjoy parties. octavia, however, loved them.

she grew up well, the three years after their first meeting. despite her antisocial best friend, she flourished as soon as they started attending arkadia high school together, building off her brothers basketball team captain reputation and whirl winding her way into the popular social hierarchy. she, of course, dragged her angst ridden best friend along for the ride. murphy wasn’t popular per say, but he was well known, and often forced into social gatherings that he didn’t particularly want to attend. they had a solid group of friends who often coaxed octavia —and ergo murphy— into parties. 

as a newly minted sixteen year old, in the brisk cold nights of may, murphy was forced to yet another high school kegger by octavia blake and jasper jordan. he’d protested strongly at first, but eventually he gave in at the promise of jaspers very mediocre, very home grown weed, which landed him stuck at the edge of a group of teenagers with a strong tasting drink in one hand, and an unlit joint in the other. he considered finding jasper, but murphy had a reputation to uphold; he didn’t like anyone except octavia, and that was purely because she forced him to, after years of hard work.

it wasn’t necessarily untrue. 

he thought of bellamy, just for a second, as his eyes raked across the dancing teenagers grinding and jeering wildly to early 2000’s pop, and wondered if he bought the lie that murphy and octavia were both sleeping over at their friend gaias for the night. not that murphy cared all too much, since bellamy had evolved into a party-obsessed basketball player himself. he was honestly surprised bellamy wasn’t already invited to the party; some cheerleaders that octavia knew from the squad.

he took a swig of the sharp alcoholic drink. so much had changed in the years since he’d pushed little eight year old octavia blake out of that tree at the end of their yards. it’d been three years since alex murphy had been shot, for a start, and the treehouse still had ply walls and an uncomfortable blue tarpaulin deck chair. three years since esther murphy turned from a gentle, distant mother into a shell of a woman. most of the time, murphy felt numb towards it all. occasionally he felt red hot angry.

watching octavias closest female friend —gaia reyes, their fake alibi for bellamy— dance along with some older high schooler, probably a junior, murphy felt nothing but sick. it was probably the alcohol, but his stomach ached with a deep-set pain that he couldn’t afford to ignore in the stuffy room. he sighed, pushing himself off the indent window that he’d been hiding in and weaved his way through the crowd. a few people greeted him, only in passing, and he caught glimpses of octavias inner circle friends. monty, nathan, bryan, is that clarke? he didn’t care to stop. he kept moving until he exited the middle class house through the double sliding glass doors and skirted around vomiting teens and freshman greening out in the back lawn. 

he had two months until summer, and then he wouldn’t be forced to so many ‘celebratory’ parties. being best friends with a cheerleader only had so many upsides, and the amount of party invites was not one of them. he hoped that once they reached july, octavia would lay off the functions, or at least only make murphy go to small gatherings with their inner circle. he was sick of red solo cups and dodging people who were too busy throwing up to notice him.

exhausted and utterly sick of the people around him, murphy slunk into the shadows along the back of the house and took as deep a breath of fresh air as he could, the beat of the music pounding along with his sharp headache. he kept walking alone the side of the house until it was almost pitch black, the bristling garden not offering much in terms of outdoor lighting. he didn’t mind, the brightness was starting to burn his eyes.

eventually, the side of the generously sized house met with an ironically white-picket fence, and tucked into the corner was an old wooden bench with intricate carvings along the arms. murphy sighed, rubbing a hand across his eyes and crashed into the hardwood. he felt like shit, and considered texting octavia that he’d just walk back to sanctum street alone because he really wasn’t in the mood for a party, but the idea of even standing up made him feel woozy. he wondered if he could rope miller into driving him home early, but then remembered the boy being coaxed into doing a keg stand by his boyfriend, bryan. their other usual designated driver was monty, who was jaspers growing partner and consequential best friend, way too innocent and sweet for their trouble maker friendship group and one of the only people murphy could tolerate. he was also pretty sure monty wasn’t even at the party. 

the only other person that ever drove to and from parties for them was bellamy, but that had never ended well, and murphy had never once got into his car alone. he’d probably reach over and yank the wheel if he had to. 

yeah, he’d definitely prefer to walk back home.

opting to kill some time until his energy was just a little restored, murphy slid his phone out of his front pocket of his tight jeans, wincing slightly at the bright white screen. he had eight texts, all from an array of octavias inner circle, and he slowly clicked through them. jasper asking if he wanted to spark up about an hour prior, octavia texting him twice to remind him that she loved him, three texts from miller about joining him, bryan and jackson for a game of beer pong, and two texts from bellamy blake. 

he blinked at his screen, wondering if he’d hallucinated it in his drunken stupor. but the words were bold and bright, followed by three knife emojis. 

[ugly blake dont reply]  
murphy.  
where is octavia?

swearing under his breath, murphy forgot about the existence of read receipts and shot an s.o.s text to his best friend, fumbling just about the right words into a message that could be translated to ‘your brother knows we aren’t at gaias, check your phone.’ he sat back into the bench as he waited for a reply, knees anxiously bouncing up and down. bellamy wasn’t a huge fan of octavia shifting into a social butterfly when she started high school, and he’d liked it even less when she started going to parties. the first time, octavia got so drunk that she was black out and murphy had to call bellamy, who chewed him out for being a bad influence. the younger boy hadn’t replied. in the morning, octavia told him that she was the one who forced murphy into it, and had rhetorically asked bellamy if he really thought that the younger boy was a party sort of person.

he’d been their ride very few times after that, all for the same reason. either octavia was blackout, or their only drivers were. he was never thrilled about it.

the two best friends resorted to making sure someone was sober enough to take them home, or simply just lying about a sleepover so they could crash at the party hosts house until early morning when they’d make their return. it’d been months since they’d had to call bellamy. if there was a party without a way home, they wouldn’t go, and would instead sneak a bottle of vodka up to the treehouse and play dumb drinking games between just the two of them. it was fun, much more fun than cliche parties. murphy wished they did it more often.

he felt his phone buzz again, and opened the text without checking who it was.

[ugly blake dont reply]  
i know can see these, asshole  
this is important, okay? i dont give a shit what you’re doing, text me back

[murphy]  
she’s not with me

it was cold outside the house. murphy was an idiot who’d been looking purely to get very drunk and hopefully laid; his arms were bare against the cool may time weather and his shirt was so thin that it followed the shape of his narrow shoulders and fell over his collarbones like a waterfall. he vaguely knew it was some time past one in the morning, and rubbed his hands against his forearms in a desperate hope for warmth, to no avail. just as he stood up to go back inside and steal a jacket from jasper or miller, his phone began to buzz again. someone was calling him.

he knew it’d be bellamy, but if he declined he’d most likely get his ass handed to him the second he stepped foot on sanctum street. gritting his teeth, he wordlessly answered the phone and held it with a shaking hand against his ear. the music inside the house was still loud, so he had to close his eyes to focus enough to hear. “murphy, seriously. where is she?”

“i told you, blake, she’s not with me.”

“bullshit, i can hear the music, i know you guys are at ontari’s party.” murphy rolled his eyes, fingers dusting over the joint that was still in between two fingers, unlit. he craved so badly for a lighter to appear out of nowhere, just to make the conversation less painful. bellamy may have been book-smart, but he could be a meathead sometimes, and stubborn as all hell. 

“yes, but i haven’t seen her for hours. she’s with gaia somewhere.” murphy shivered, cursing bellamy out internally. he wanted to go home. “is that all? im freezing my ass off.”

“are you on your own?” bellamy sounded genuinely confused, even a little concerned. his irritating hero complex was still at work, even after three years of being around murphy. that complex alone was enough to fuel the distaste that only grew more over those years, leaving them awkward and estranged, without the familiar warmth they used to have.

“im leaving because its boring here. are we done, blake?” he pressed. giving up entirely on the idea of stealing a jacket from one of his few friends, murphy crossed the back lawn to the other side of the house, stopping by a few girls to quietly ask them if they had a lighter, one hand covering the microphone on his cell. a brunet girl handed one over, waving him off when he told her he’d give it back. 

bellamy sounded frustrated. “you’re leaving her? on her own?” murphy exited the backyard through an unlatched gate, walking down the side of the house and out to the front drive. it was still a raging party, and he winced at the extremely raised volume of music. without looking back, he crossed over the road and began walking down the sidewalk in the vague direction he knew to be the way to the south side.

“well she left me hours ago, technically. bygones.” the joint between his fingers burned, and murphy had to lean his head away from the mic to take a drag, feeling the satisfying pull at his lungs, the chipped shortness of breath. he smiled through the exhale, watching the smoke curl into rings in the dark sky. “besides, she’s with all of her friends, and im tired so im just gonna… just gonna find my way home.”

the terribly mixed drinks he’d been consuming all night were beginning to catch up with him, he noted, as the streetlights along the fancy estate began to swim in his vision and his feet couldn’t stay as straight as he’d thought. “find your… you’re not walking home drunk. ontari lives all the way on the other side of the city, murph. where are you? ill give you a ride.” murphy couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard that nickname from bellamy, but he wasn’t about to protest it. he didn’t like the idea of being chaperoned home, though, so he hummed in disagreement across the line. he could heard the hard exhale of bellamys annoyance through the phone. “murphy, if you dont tell me where you are, ill start driving around the north side until i find you. im already half way there, okay? just stay put and send your location or something.”

“you’ve always got to be such a hero, blake.” murphy mumbled through a bite of annoyance, pulling the phone away from his ear without switching it to speaker phone and fumbling his way to the ‘send location’ option on his imessage. he tapped the button and hummed into the receiver, hoping that was enough to satisfy the older teen. when he turned around on the sidewalk, he could still see the bright colourful lights pouring out of big glass windows like spilled milk, and realised he’d barely made it to the end of the street. exhausted, he sat down on the curb of the sidewalk and leant back against a streetlight post. “on the street still, jus’ near the end. you’ll see me.”

his head felt heavy as he took a few more tokes of the joint, phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder. bellamy wasn’t talking, and murphy was sure he was able to hear the quiet sizzle of burning weed, but he couldn’t bring himself to care too much. he just wanted to go to bed, his best friend finding out he was a stoner be damned. it wasn’t shocking. the ambient sound of bellamy driving through the city was relaxing as background noise whilst he smoked, zoning him out until the ambience became clearer and his phone chimed with the end call tone, a familiar beat up volkswagen polo pulling up in front of him. the drivers seat window was rolled down, and bellamy was looking at him with an expression murphy couldn’t read even if he were stone cold sober.

“hi.” he smiled, dropping the stinging roger onto the concrete. 

“hi.” the front seat clicked open, and bellamy stepped out to help murphy to his feet. he crushed the dog end with his foot and wrapped an arm around the sixteen year olds side, supporting him around his thin frame and helping him to the passenger side. murphy dropped into the seat and let his head roll back against the headrest, shutting his eyes as soon as he was sat down. he heard bellamy get in, and laughed a little when the older teen reached over to clip in his seatbelt for him.

“are we getting o?”

bellamy started the ignition, but murphy didn’t bother to look where they were driving. “no, she’s getting a ride home with monty. she text me a second ago.” murphy hummed in recognition, too tired to form any words past that. as long as octavia was safe, that was all that mattered. he half wished he’d stuck around to get a ride from monty too, because the silence of sitting with bellamy blake was choking and horrifically awkward. 

he could have fallen asleep, if not for the road turning rougher and the speed bumps becoming less smooth — all telltale signs that they’d entered the south side. after a long ride, he felt the car jerk over a particularly rough speed bump and pull into a drive, and when murphy lulled his head to the side to peer out the window, his eyes landed on the broken wooden porch in front of his house. he wondered if his mom was awake, or even home.

“no way, you’re coming with me. i do not trust you to get to bed by yourself.” bellamy clicked his tongue, the ignition spitting as he switched of the engine. murphy groaned, fingers trailing over the rim of the window. he couldn’t even bring himself to sit up, let alone take himself all the way up the stairs to his own bedroom. bellamy was right, but that didn’t mean he had to accept it happily. there was a faint stinging behind his eyes, and he felt sick to his stomach, slumping back into the passenger seat when the door opened. “jesus, you’re fucking wasted, aren’t you?”

murphy laughed, stretching his hands out in front of him and curling into the seat. it was warm in the car, and he could already feel a rush of cold air without even getting out. bellamy huffed a chuckle, unclipping his seatbelt and manhandling the younger boy to hoist him out of the seat. if he could think straight, murphy would have asked why he was even bothering so much, but he was too drunk to care. he smiled again, looping both his arms around bellamys neck and leaning his body weight against the taller boy. 

his body felt warm, despite the freezing air biting at his arms, and his head was buzzing, like static running through his brain, white and black dots clouding his vision. he shivered, and couldn’t tell if it was due to the cold weather or bellamys warm breath fanning over his neck as he leant over to lock the car. 

“lets get you inside before you freeze your ass off. i cant believe you thought you’d make it all the way to the southside without like… passing out or getting hypothermia or something.” bellamy muttered, easily shifting murphys entire body to the side so it was easier to support him and navigate the path to the front door of the blake household. murphy shrugged against him, eyes focused on the stars.

“probably would’ve just slept on a bench.” 

bellamy frowned down at him, pausing from where he was holding the keys out to unlock the door. he looked worried, but murphy didn’t really care. “you do that? a lot?”

the tawny haired boy shrugged again, his bones aching for rest. he thought about bellamy’s cinnamon hot chocolate and the pile of blankets they always kept on their sofa and smiled. “sometimes. dont worry though, o always gets home safe. i make sure. always. just stay behind sometimes. she’s not always with me.” he rambled, letting his head fall forward as the door swung open. he heard bellamy curse beside him, and took the liberty of attempting to stand by himself, clutching at the walls for support. only the hallway light was on, a soft orange glow that subsided the pain in his head for just a moment. 

“i know. you’re… you’re good to her.” bellamy quietly admitted, following the younger boy into the house and standing feverishly close, just enough to catch him if he tripped. 

“jesus, bell, don't make it sound like we’re married.” murphy bit back, stopping for just a moment in an attempt to get his head to stop spinning so much. it didn’t, really. 

“you kind of act like it. here, follow me.” murphy didn’t really notice that they weren’t headed for the living room where he typically slept, too busy letting his fingers trail across the dusty shelves of trinkets and photo frames along the walls. the blakes homely decorations always made his heart ache in a way he couldn’t understand. 

“i dont even like girls, idiot. ‘specially not octavia.” bellamy was silent behind him for a moment, hands freezing from their place on his shoulder blades, directing him up the stairs. for a moment, murphy was scared he’d made it sound too much like an insult rather than a compliment; the blakes were always so fiercely protective of their counterpart sibling.

slightly anxious, murphy turned to look at bellamy, who gave him a half smile and lightly shoved him forward, encouraging him to keep scaling the stairs until they were at an even landing. although they rarely went to octavia’s room, murphy had visited their house enough to be able to navigate it blindfolded, and through his drunken stupor he could tell the direction they were headed was not octavia’s room. he tried to point that out to bellamy, too, but he couldn’t form a single word in his garbled brain.

he’d only been in bellamy’s room once; when he first started hanging out with octavia, before their relationship devolved to strained yet again. it had soft beige walls, fairly bland and organised for a teenage boy. there was a bookshelf cluttered with well worn books and a few trinkets, and a small desk in the corner. his bed was in the far corner, an old splintered bed frame supporting a mattress and multitude of loved blankets, all complete with more than a few holes.

“you can sleep in here. i don’t want you to die trying to navigate the bathroom.” bellamy bluntly joked, lurching forward to support murphy when he tripped on a slightly jagged floorboard. he laughed into bellamy’s shoulder, stumbling in the older teens grasp as he tried to regain his footing. the freckled teen lead him over to the bed, stepping back when murphy crashed onto the surprisingly soft blankets, smiling in to the cotton pillows. he hesitated for a moment.

“what happened to you?”  
murphy frowned, tilting his head to look up at the apprehensive blake. bellamy, more so than anyone, knew what happened. he knew about alex murphy and esther and the two cops that almost dragged a poor heartbroken boy away. he even knew about octavias friends and how sometimes murphy felt so isolated, like he was a lone boy in a barren country.

he smiled, bitter and venomous. “high school.”

murphy didn’t remember waking up at six in the morning and throwing up everything in his stomach. he didn’t remember returning to bellamys room or burrowing himself into the mountain of blankets. however, he did remember being sharply awoken at eleven am by octavia, who whipped the deep mocha curtains away from the window. the light burned holes into his skull, and he cowered further into the corner, desperately trying to avoid the brightness. 

“any reason you’re sleeping in my brothers bed?” octavia demanded, too loud for the faint pounding behind murphys eyes. he groaned for a moment, letting his eyes settle on the thick leather books on the biggest shelf of bellamys bookshelf. his best friend was far to jovial for such an early afternoon after such a hard pass party, and yet she remained perched on the end of the twin bed with a bright smile, not faltering for a second.

he shrugged, shivering at the cold air as he pushed the pile of blankets off his thin frame. he glanced out the window, eyes settling on the dusting of orange at the edge of the sky, just hidden behind a thick grove of trees. if he squinted, he could see comforting ply wood walls. he could hear heavy footfall downstairs, the scent of irish cream coffee drifting from the kitchen. he wondered if bellamy had slept on the sofa, or if he’d slept at all. “he didn’t want me to throw up on the landing. probably would’ve.” 

with a roll of her eyes, octavia stood up and turned to reach out a hand, her dark hail pulled back into a ponytail whipping around with the sharp movement. she was really beautiful, with her chestnut hair and soft eyes and intoxicating personality. even in the bland afternoon light, he thought he’d follow her to the ends of the earth. she pulled him out of the twin bed and pulled him through the landing and downstairs, all while he was still dazed.

bellamy was stood in front of the oven, fitting one of the gas nobs back, bacon sizzling in a pan. he said good morning to octavia, too distracted to notice the additional presence of murphy who awkwardly sat down at the table in their open plan kitchen. the furniture was all a little too close together, forced into tight spaces like it was a game of tetris, fitting the overall disarranged aesthetic of the blake residence. the colours of the hardwood floor, furniture and kitchen appliances all slightly clashed in a way that made the room feel more homely, and it comforted murphy. 

“oh, murphy,” bellamy blurted when. he turned from the oven, a pan of bacon in one hand, a pair of oven gloves thrown over his shoulder. he looked awfully domestic, far too soft and caring to be the cool, popular jock that the rest arkadia high knew him as. murphy wasn’t sure if he should feel special seeing such a private, hidden away part of bellamy. he supposed it was any sort of smugness to hold over the horrible girls that fawned over the older teen; the ones who would get flustered at the sight of him changing a lightbulb or cooking breakfast. “i didn’t know you were awake. here, i made extra.”

bellamy dished him out the perfect hangover breakfast, and murphy managed to just about force a mumbled ‘thank you’ from his mouth before he dug in. octavia ate slowly and politely, chatting about her night to her older brother. murphy ate like he was a starved child, tentatively ripping apart the food, shying away when either of the blake siblings glanced over at him. 

they ate breakfast together a lot, as bellamy would typically drive both of the sophomores to the high school each morning. they didn’t often have time for anything cooked, though, their norm being chewing on pieces of toast whilst rushing around the house to find forgotten items. bellamy was quiet. he didn’t eat much, the younger boy realised, taking note on how many times bellamys eyes would stray to him. clearly, something was up. did he say or do something colossally stupid the night before?

obviously, he thought bellamy was hot. he wasn’t blind or stupid; both of the blakes were built like they were carved by the gods. perhaps he even idolised the rebel king when he was a little younger, hyper-focused on the stoic but caring attitude. bellamy was mesmerising, but also an undeniable dick. he was a douche in every form of the word, and usually butted heads with murphy, no spare room for fondness.

but his lingering eyes weren’t accusatory. they were warm, almost shy. bellamy blake was not shy, it just simply wasn’t in his nature.

when they’d finished eating, murphy was whisked away by octavia to her room so they could return to their usual dynamic. his mind kept straying back to bellamy and how he glanced up at him with soft eyes. through teenage angst and bloodline overprotectiveness, they had drifted since their first year. bellamy became rough around the edges, but malleable enough to fit into the popular douchebag role, forgetting classic literature and fantasy novels. murphy had only changed so much as letting the anger he’d holstered free; he was not the kind of company you’d want your baby sister to keep around. 

they weren’t too different in age. bellamy knew the kind of people murphy chose to spend his time with, aside octavia and her friends. he also knew even within their little social group, a particularly sweet dynamic duo grew and sold their own… herbs. bellamy wasn’t an idiot, he never had been, and even if he was a little clueless occasionally, he knew teenagers. although he never really had the opportunity to do whatever he pleased, working six days a week and cramming as much school work into his free time as possible, he still experienced enough to know that murphy wasn’t really good news.

when murphy got up four hours into a gossip girl marathon to use the bathroom, he ran into bellamy in the hallway, quite literally. the older of the two seemed to be shaken up, nearly being completely knocked over despite the fact he was the more solid and taller one of them. he had to grip the bannister of the staircase to keep from falling over, not too shocked when murphy made just a meagre attempt to help him, other than reaching a hand out. bellamy rolled his eyes, pulling himself back up onto his feet. he was really tall, murphy noted. he saw the older boy a lot, yes, but he never really stood so close to him, not for a while. he was probably nearing six four, murphy still even at five nine. it was frustrating, to say the least. they’d never physically fought, not really, and although murphy could see it on the horizon, he almost wanted to postpone it until he’d gained a little height. though, getting his ass kicked by bellamy blake didn’t seem like the worst option.

“murph,” the nickname rolled off his tongue like sweet honey. “are you listening?”

murphy rocked back onto his heels, like a child, cracking the bones in his hands to keep his eyes from counting the freckles. “nope.”

“i said im sorry.” that was surprising. albeit a little late, to the point where murphy had no idea what exactly he was apologising for. he would’ve guessed it was for their usual strained relationship that teetered closer to violent every day, but when he looked up at bellamy in utter shock, the older teen had his eyes stubbornly fixed on the broken floorboards and his arms across his chest. if he were apologising for that, he would be open and kind, not the closed off way he only acted with murphy and other similar delinquents he didn’t particularly favour. 

opening his mouth to reply, murphy couldn’t find the right words. apologising for what? seemed too forgiving; forgetful. he was neither of those things. “what?” he settled on, stuttering the single word out like he was performing a dramatic monologue for an auditorium sized crowd. he hated seeming nervous, so he let the usual cold glaze over his eyes fill in, shifting his demeanour to marginally annoyed. that was more john murphy. 

bellamy looked pained at the one word answer, however, as if the apology in general was literally sucking his life-force out of him. murphy didn’t think he was that bad, however much of a bad influence on octavia he could be. jasper and monty dealt weed to her, for christs sake, and bellamy most likely wouldn’t look like a dagger was in his back if he ever had to apologise for them. “for… i dont know, always blaming you. thinking its always you that drags o to those awful parties and shit.” bellamy went quiet for a moment, but murphy was to stunned to even make a single noise. he couldn’t even process the sentence in his brain without it short circuiting. “its not fair. yeah, you’re an asshole and you definitely keep company id rather she wasn’t around, but…”

murphy swallowed, thinking bellamys words over in his brain again. “but im not a popular cheerleader who gets invited to popular cheerleader parties?” he quipped, bellamy groaning in protest at the awfully blunt words. “took you long enough to figure that one out, detective. i thought you were smart.”

bellamys eyebrows furrowed together, a line of anger settling over his features. that was an expression he was used to, one he welcomed and revelled in. pissing bellamy off was like riding a bike; as soon as you figured out how to hold your balance, it was easy. so long as you weren’t afraid of falling off, because three years didn’t just bring bellamy height, he was also fairly built too. murphy knew if they ever did get into a physical altercation, his street fighting skills would be the only thing keeping him from being ko’d. 

“im just saying, that wasn’t nice of me.”

murphy rolled his eyes, gently pushing bellamys shoulder to get past him. he didn’t budge. “i dont give a shit about nice. now move, i need to piss.”

“murphy.”

“blake, if you dont move i will literally piss in your hallway and i will not be the one to clean it up. do you want that? do you?” murphy pushed, his eyes bearing into bellamy’s like they were already fighting. he had to look up, especially in such close distance, which was a little humiliating. the older boy probably thought he was fucking crazy, so much younger and shorter and thinner than him and still picking a fight like he could win with a pinky finger. 

“you’re such an asshole.” bellamy sighed, knocking his shoulder into murphys hard enough to knock him back, only a step or two. the younger laughed, but it was too sharp and bitter to be genuine. he just wanted a piss, but of course the resident golden boy picked then to further his upstanding hero complex and try to make the poor kid next door fall for his trick too. “im trying to apologise and you literally dont give a shit.”

“damn right.” murphy smiled, venomous and irritated around sharp biting teeth. 

“are you ever going to grow up? ive tried so many times but you just… you dont even try.” bellamy didn’t seem sad, he seemed angry. a different kind of angry to his usually easy-to-manipulate irritation when murphy pressed too far. it set his eyes on fire, rather than their usual apathetic annoyance. they weren’t stone cold, they were blazing and it terrified murphy a little bit. his brain turned the words over in his mind, and he frowned. 

“what the fuck are you on about?”

bellamy made a frustrated noise, one that was closer to his usual demeanour. murphy could see the cogs in his mind turning as he desperately searched for the right thing to say, and internally wondered when bellamy had lost his instantaneous way with the english language that he’d had mere years ago. his voice came out soft when he finally settled on something. “i just meant that im sorry, okay? you might not believe me, and thats okay, but i am.”

murphy felt cold from his head to his toes. it was still afternoon, and the hallway was lit up with different beams of sunlight streaming in from the open doors, one ray directly from the window in bellamys room. it lit them both up, making them glow like little lights in a box, and murphy felt warm from the light. his mouth was dry, he thought, his eyes unconsciously drawing up the length of bellamys body again, shame biting at his ankles and refusing him to just glance up in one. when he settled on the older boys face, there was no malice written into his expressions. “fine, okay. sure. can i piss now?”

bellamy laughed. an actual laugh, too, which made murphy feel weird in a way he couldn’t describe, but he nodded. 

when murphy exited the bathroom, both of the blake siblings were stood at the top of the staircase where he and bellamy had just been, angrily whispering at each other. a little apprehensive, murphy trended carefully. he could hear someone downstairs, maybe more than one person. when octavia turned to him, he noticed she was crying. 

john murphy was not an emotional person. the only emotion he did show was anger, in shades of blind fury and mild annoyance. but seeing his best friend cry in a genuine open way, in a way he’d never seen her cry before, he didn’t care that he was john murphy. he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest and letting her cry into him. her sobs, barely muffled by the cotton of his shirt, were a sound that hurt him so deep in his core that he tightened his grip on her, lowering his head to whisper in her ear. “i love you. you’re my best friend, i love you.”

he glanced up at bellamy, over her shoulders, his eyes careful and questioning. he looked fairly upset too, but bellamy blake was not an emotional person. he didn’t shed tears for anything.

when octavia calmed down, she pulled her head away from murphys chest just a few inches, looking up at him with tired, sad eyes. her mascara had dripped down from her eyes, leaving faint blank tear tracks that somehow suited her. everything suited her. he took her hand in his own and squeezed it, feeling bellamys stare. as curious as he was to know what the fuck had happened in the five minutes he’d been in the bathroom for, octavia blake was the only person he’d be gentle with. 

“my dad died.” she stated, blunt. murphy felt sick to his stomach, and he felt her squeeze his hand. “i dont even know why im upset. he never gave a shit about me, you know? never really called, never sent even a birthday card.” octavia sniffed miserably. “one time when he actually did call, i mentioned bellamy and he asked me who that was.” murphy knew how much she talked about her older brother. she held their hands close to her chest, closing her other one around it. 

it was fairly obvious the two blake siblings weren’t fully related. they shared a lot of features and were a spitting image of one another, but murphy also knew that bellamy was filipino and octavia wasn’t. he just hadn’t considered it too much. they’d never spoken a word of either of their biological fathers, and he wasn’t too inclined to ask. he briefly wondered in that second what had happened to bellamys father, if he was still around and simply just an asshole the way octavias seemed to be. 

“who’s here?” murphy asked quietly, mostly to bellamy.

the older teen seemed angry again, but it was toned down, and for once it wasn’t directed at his sister best friend. he glanced down at the stairs. “our mom, some… insurance person, i dont know.” he seemed to be blocking the stairs with his body, like he wanted to keep octavia shielded from the whole situation. “i think we should stay here, o. mom is talking it over with them, we can sort it all later.”

octavia nodded, rubbing at the streaks of black on her face. “ugh.” she laughed miserably at the smudge it left on her hand, and sniffed again, trying to completely control the crying. “anyone feel like watching merlin?”

a week later, octavia had discovered she had a small sum of money put away in an isa waiting for her eighteenth birthday. she didn’t seem to care too much, and one night when murphy snuck a bottle of vodka up to their treehouse she got so drunk and jokingly called it ‘emotional damage compensation, nothing more’. murphy thought it was pretty funny.

bellamy was quiet in that week. in the countless nights murphy slept over at the blakes house to support his best friend, amongst their pitiful father-less tandem drinking and movie binging, he’d forgotten about the apology the older blake had given him. 

he’d forgotten until one morning when he woke up so early that it was still dark, crept down the stairs to make octavia a hot chocolate for when she woke up, and turned around to see bellamy in the doorway. he was in his uniform for thirty second pizza place, car keys in one hand and phone in the other. they hadn’t talked much in the week, if at all. bellamy had been busy at work, and murphy had been busy skipping classes to comfort octavia. neither of them had set foot in the high school.

“good morning.” bellamy said, clipped; normally they’d just ignore each other. murphy raised an eyebrow. 

“good morning?”

the older blake seemed hesitant, like he was hovering for something to happen so he could move. after a few seconds, he sighed. “i have something for you.” he spoke slowly, carefully, as if afraid he’d startle murphy by speaking too much too quick. he looked younger in the uniform, like an actual senior scraping together money to afford textbooks and alcohol and whatever else it was regular teenage boys bought. he didn’t look like a young man who worked six days a week to support his little sister, without much parental guidance at all. it was blatantly misguiding, but murphy supposed he looked happier. he thought it was the hat; dark curls pushed back into a cap, showing the sharp lines of his cheekbones. 

he dropped his keys and phone on a low shelf by the front door, disappearing into the lounge and out of murphy’s view, who was left staring at his vacant spot, just then realising bellamy’s words; he’d been too focused on the cut of his face. when he returned, he was holding a book in his hands. 

murphy knew the title just from a flash of the cover, and when bellamy dropped it on the small table between them, shaking the table and making one of the mugs of hot chocolate drip onto the wood, it was confirmed. inquisitive, murphy crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at the older teen. “trying to prove you are still smart by gifting me classic lit?” he asked sarcastically, reaching over to let his fingers dust across the cover. “academia just wasn’t made for low-lives like us.”

“richard papen did not freeze his ass off for you to be classist, murphy.” bellamy clicked his tongue, a grin spread across his face at the stunned look he got in return. he pushed the book closer to murphy, not leaving it to debate. the younger boy had only ever listened to the audiobook, abridged version, but he’d listened to it so many times that he had it committed to memory. it would be nice to read about the pretentious classics clique in printed words, even if he had to stop every four seconds and desperately try to focus on the characters.

he looked up at bellamy whilst turning the book over in his hands. he looked at the way the dark curls poked out the cap just behind his ears, the way his skin looked almost glazed bronze in the morning light, how his unusually warm eyes created a settling solace. beauty is terror, murphy thought distantly. bellamy left with a small wave and another shy side glance. he didn’t get back from work until six pm.

octavia had asked about the book, and murphy had told the truth. it was strange, sure, but octavia seemed to think of it more as her brother getting back into literature the way he was three years prior, so she didn’t question it all too much. murphy wanted to think that too, but he hadn’t seen bellamy with a book for months. he saw him working, and cooking, and cleaning surfaces, and rushing to do math equations whilst he made toast in the mornings, but he hadn’t seen him with a novel for a long time. he knew realistically that bellamy wasn’t stupid, he never would be and never had been. he knew realistically that the eighteen year old simply just didn’t have enough time anymore. he tried to not think about how sad that was as he washed out the dishes he and octavia had made during the day, almost on autopilot. he’d never done the dishes for them before. he refused to think about why he was even doing them.

when bellamy returned, two bags of groceries in each hand, he found three more teenagers in their lounge, all sat in a circle. murphy was sat criss-cross amongst them, in between jasper and nathan miller, monty and then octavia continuing the circle. he looked up at bellamy, who greeted them far kinder than he did when it was just murphy. he looked tired, his uniform spattered with grease stains. his hat was hooked into one of his belt loops, and some of his untamed curls were sticking to his forehead. their usual group of friends were far familiar with him, so he didn’t seem to care about looking like a mess in front of them. 

“im taking a shower, if any of you little assholes try to waste the hot water i will kick you out.”

“even me?”

“especially you, murphy.”

bellamy disappeared up the stairs. the slightly tattered copy of the secret history was laying on the pile of blankets that octavia called ‘murphys dog bed’ upstairs. he felt slightly antsy, and couldn’t quite place why.

“jasper,” he leant over to whisper to the lanky, dorky teenager, drumming his fingers on his knees to dissipate some of his nervous energy. it didn’t do anything to help. “have you got any weed on you?”

jasper gave him a knowing smile and tapped gently at his bag that lay behind him, half open with a hoodie spilling out. “you offend me, murphy. of course i do. they dont call me joint junkie jasp for nothing.” 

“no one calls you that.” murphy deadpanned, reaching over to pull the bag towards himself. all of them in their inner circle smoked, and he could hear the distant patter of the shower upstairs, so he figured it was safe enough to just roll right there. hunting through the bag, he listened to octavia talk animatedly about their week, catching up on all of the gossip she’d missed on her week off from school. (“bella cooper is pregnant. oh, and mr. harrison got kicked out for sleeping with a student.” “that doesn’t even shock me, miller. i need something exciting.” “slow news week, i guess?”)

when he’d successfully rolled, murphy held up the joint with a proud grin on his face. “smoke break anyone?” suprisingly, he was the only one who wanted to. jasper claimed he was already pretty stoned, but murphy would put it more on how reckless he got when he was too high, and the dangerous looks he gave miller whenever monty laughed too hard at one of his jokes. he knew why octavia declined, and gave her a wink when no one was looking, to which she returned a small but genuine smile that held the same warmth as bellamys. miller was more of a social smoker, and although murphy considered him to be his second closest friend, he normally wouldn’t opt to unless most of the group were.

that left him stood on the front porch of the blakes house, joint between his fingers, shivering at the light spring breeze. it was still light out, bright orange blazing across the entire sky at such a bright tone, one that no poet or artist would ever be able to capture. it was beautiful, even with the low skyline of the south sides run down buildings. it was home. 

the front door creaked open, and murphy cursed quietly. “you shouldn’t be smoking.”

“okay.” he said, taking a drag.

bellamy sighed, but he made no move to return to the warm inside of the house. murphy couldn’t bring himself to look at him, until the older asked for a lighter. he turned, holding out the dark green clipper he’d stone from one of his particularly annoying classmates, and his breaths felt disturbingly short all of a sudden. 

if bellamy looked bronze in the morning light, he glowed gold in evening hours, copper freckles breaking the smooth tones. maybe he was a little more than objectively hot. maybe there was some childlike admiration behind it too, but it didn’t really matter, because he was still an asshole who had underlined an entire passage about henry winters. 

“you like henry.”  
bellamy looked at him for a moment, then his face fell. “oh god, please don't tell me you’re a henry anti.”

“a henry what?”

the freckled boy lit his cigarette, curling his free hand around the thieved lighter. he inhaled once, exhaled, and murphy could see the essay he was forming in his head. he laughed before bellamy even began to speak. “a henry anti, like… you dont like him. how can you not like him? he is the archetype of dark academia taken too far.”

murphy outstretched his hands, expression clear with utter confusion and feigned annoyance. “exactly?! he’s pretentious and a complete psychopath. he probably jerks off with a mirror in one hand and a copy of the iliad in his other.”

“firstly, he doesn’t have three hands. secondly, the iliad is deservedly praised.”

“of course you would think that, you’re like… a henry winters stan or something.” bellamy gaped at him, reaching over to lightly smack murphys shoulder, who was too busy cackling at the purely horrified face of the older teen. the maytime chill turned to a gentle warmth, the same warmth that burned at his fingertips in embers, and the same warmth that curled around his heart.

“you probably favour richard or bunny.” bellamy said grumpily, looking even more like a young boy than he had that morning as he practically pouted, kicking at the flooring of the porch. murphy eyes flickered to his own house for just a second, but he refused to let the smile on his lips slip away.

“bunny is a coward scam artist and richard is just as pretentious as the rest of them.” his eyes locked with bellamy, who narrowed his eyes like he was trying to solve murphy, like he was a puzzle that needed fitting together. the last piece clicked into place, and a soft smile followed the way excitement at finishing a jigsaw would. 

“francis abernathy. shallow upon first read, but gentle and compassionate and sensitive by the following.” bellamy spoke like he was writing an essay, and murphy found it utterly enticing. “i would’ve pegged you as a henry ‘stan’” he curled his fingers into air quotes, clutching the lighter tight in one hand with his ring finger and thumb. the tawny haired boy would have laughed at the gesture, if he wasn’t still caught up in their literature debate. he felt almost exposed, showing that side of himself. he’d never really leant himself to believe he was allowed genuine interests, like there was something wrong with that, and speaking about them so openly stunned him.

“funny, i would’ve stuck you with francis.” murphy curled his lips around the joint, praying it held his usual apathetic juxtaposition. “i think you’re quite alike to him.”

“does that mean im your favourite character?”

murphy rolled his eyes, crushing the dog end of his joint into the small ceramic ashtray on the bannister. he turned on his heel and left bellamy on the porch.

the last month and a half of school went by quickly, once both murphy and octavia had returned form their week off. the last week was even relatively fun, since they were sophomores without much responsibility. murphy spent most of his out-of-class time at the blakes or in the treehouse, stopping by to check his mom was alive at least three times a week. he rarely saw bellamy, who was wrapped up in school work and job work and a billion other things, even more so than usual. he didn’t see aurora once, but he didn’t see her much at all that year.

the last day of school went, and murphy didn’t think too much about it. he’d reluctantly started to actually like their inner circle, a little forcefully for octavia, and he knew they’d all hang out for mostly the entire summer, so nothing would change.

six days into summer break, when bellamy was working an extra shift at thirty second and octavia was sleeping over at one of her cheerleading friends, murphy had no option but to stay at his own home for what felt like the first time in an eternity. he knew he could call miller and crash, but their friendship was fairly new and murphy was not the kind of person who’d just call up and ask, even if the answer would certainly be yes.

the tarmac of the sidewalk on sanctum street was hot, even thought the thin soles of his battered converse, and he could faintly spell a barbecue grill as he passed the first few houses. he never expected to feel nervous going into his own home, but the lights on the lower floor were on. his mom was home.

the stench hit him as soon as he opened the door. something foul, not quite rotten but strokes away, so pungent that it made his stomach lurch from the hallway. he dropped his bag without caring, covering his noise with the front of his shirt, breathing through his mouth to navigate the house. he checked the kitchen first, looking in the fridge and on the cluttered counters, but even the weeks old dirty dishes that lay there couldn’t have caused such a grotesque smell.

he went to the living room next, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. over the back of the sofa, he could see his moms hair, and wasn’t surprised that she’d blacked out so bad that she couldn’t smell it. it was only when he circled the sofa that he realised why she couldn’t smell it. 

murphy hated his mom. he hated her with his entire heart, but seeing her laying there so emotionless, in a pool of her own vomit made his stomach churn in a different way to how the smell had. her eyes were glossy, but not from tears. murphy dropped to his knees, pressing two fingers against her neck. nothing. he kept shifting them, pushing so hard against her skin that if she had been alive she would’ve made some noise of protest, but he couldn’t even see her through his wet eyes, panic sinking deep into his bones. nothing, no matter where he checked. he lifted a wrist from where it fell limp off the side of the sofa, fingers brushed against an empty bottle of whisky and a pill packet that had all of the capsules popped open, empty. no pulse on her wrist either.

he screamed, frustrated and terrified and sobbing, shaking hands searching through his pocket for the cheap phone he’d bought using his part-time job wages. it was slow and he never wanted to scream at it more than right then. he called the police first, despite the fact he knew that deep down she’d been dead for days. the selection box hesitated over bellamys contact, but he pressed the call button before he could decide any different. 

when bellamy picked up, confused and a little panicked sounding, murphy hadn’t been able to grasp words at all. he could hear sirens in the distance and wondered if they were for his mom. he let out a shaky breath, but when he tried to form a word he let out a raw sob. he couldn’t stop it then, crying until he heard the door swing open. everything was blurry, and he dropped his phone as he backed out of the house, hot july air hitting his face in a ridiculously ironic way. the warmth felt less comforting then.

he didn’t remember anything that happened, for a while. it was all so blurry, a medics team and police officers and then bellamys car, driving perhaps a little too fast down the dead end road of sanctum street, parking a little further down the road than usual. the blakes house, which resided closer to the dead end, was cut off by the multitude of vehicles surrounding the murphy residence. through blurry eyes, murphy saw bellamy get out of the car, octavia too. he saw him run towards the front of the house, where murphy sat on the edge of the sidewalk with one of those dumb shock blankets around his shoulders, an officer still rattling questions at him. he saw bellamy shove past an officer who tried to stop him, and run over to murphy at full speed. 

“back off.” bellamy demanded to the officer that murphy hadn’t paid a single bit of attention to. “i live next door, he’s my sister best friend, he won’t be able to answer any questions right now so just back off.”

“im going to need you to calm down, sir.” the officer replied calmly. murphy felt octavia drop down next to him, and he let her pull him against her chest. just like he had the day her dad had died. 

he didn’t feel like crying too much anymore. he felt numb and yeah, okay, in shock. he let the blanket fall from around his shoulders, and he let octavia wrap him up instead. all of the noise around them faded, and he was left numb. he was just able to decipher bellamy still arguing with the officer, though it sounded like he was giving answers to the questions directed at murphy. he’d physically put his body between the cop and the two younger teenagers, then, shielding them from the hot summer sun. 

eventually, murphy could see again. the loud sounds of the officers dulled down, although bellamy was still talking to one less than a meter away from where octavia held him. he lifted his head up, not enough to look her in the eyes, just enough to let her know he was less shaken. she squeezed him, not enough to hurt, and whispered against his ear. “i love you. you’re my best friend too, and i won’t let anything happen to you. i won’t let them… you’ll stay here. i promise.”

he hadn’t even thought about the fact his only parent and last remaining close relative had died. for three years, he’d barely lived there, and yet now that shed died things would all change so much. he tightened a hand around octavias arm. “i cant go to a foster home.” his voice was shaking again, but he had no tears left in him to be able to cry, even if he wanted to. “i cant… no one would foster me either. where the fuck am i gonna live?” he pulled back from her more, to look her in the eyes. he didn’t mind octavia seeing him like that. there wasn’t a single person in the entire world that he loved and trusted like octavia blake. 

she craned her neck to kiss his forehead, holding both of his hands in her own. “you won’t. i promise you we’ll figure something out. i promise.” 

the following months were the worst months of john murphys, altogether pretty shit, life. he met with more social workers than he could count on his hands, and his fair share of court dates. he spent hours job hunting, and landed himself a comfortable job at a coffee shop in the city centre, plus extra hours at thirty second with bellamy. it took a long time, but octavia kept her promise. 

the details were complicated. with his record, not many group homes had jumped at the opportunity to take him in, and with just eight months until his seventeenth birthday, there wasn’t much point in hunting for a foster family that would kick him out after three months, rinse and repeat for a year and a half until he was eighteen. it took time and money and long exhausting nights, but after his third court date, murphy was emancipated and put into semi-independent accommodation. 

he wasn’t thrilled to move out of sanctum street, but the idea of ever stepping foot in the house, even after it’d been stripped and bleached, made him want to vomit. 

child services placed him in an apartment in the southside, only fifteen minutes from the blakes. it was small, with three bedrooms, a tiny kitchenette that joint into a space just big enough to fit a small two seater sofa and milk crate coffee table, and a tiny bathroom. he had two roommates, both of which were apparently in similar situations to him. he didn’t know the details, but he wouldn’t be too thrilled to share his own, so he didn’t ask. 

his roommates names were john mbege and raven reyes.

while murphy hadn’t known mbege (upon learning that murphy went by his last name anyway, he decided it would only be fair if he did so too. murphy liked him already) despite the fact they were in the same grade at arkadia, he did know raven. she went to middle school with him and octavia, and had been on the unlucky end of one of murphys uncontrollable fits of anger. although it’d been documented after giving her a permanent limp, apparently pushing her off the roof of a fifteen meter high playground hut hadn’t warranted social services to not place them together. (in his defence, she shouldn’t have been on the roof. yeah, he was too, but that wasn’t the point. he’d pushed her with such force that he fell too, it just wasn’t enough to permanently damage one of his bones)

when she first saw him moving his few things into his new room in their shared apartment, she didn’t recognise him. she narrowed her eyes at him a lot, like she just couldn’t put her finger on it, until mbege had cheerfully commented that they were both called john but she could call him murphy. he had to barricade his door when she lunged at him, and he didn’t move anything until they argued through it. 

he felt bad, kind of. well, not really, but raven called her social worker and murphy called his and there were no other semi-independent living places in the right zone to arkadia and neither of them was going to move school because of something that happened when they were twelve. he told her he was sorry, she rolled her eyes. the most that happened after that was snide comments whenever he was around her.

mbege was a lot more fun. he was similar to murphy in a lot of ways — bad parenting, had a record, a bit rough around the edges. he was far more social than murphy, but no nicer. the first time bellamy came around mbege had very bluntly told him that he didn’t sell to north side cokeheads unless he wanted to scam them, and then promptly slammed the door in his face. murphy had watched the exchange from behind mbege, too amused to interject. 

he was a week into living there when they returned to school. the time between his mom dying and being placed into semi-independent living, he’d been assigned to a group home. he’d only agreed because his social worker had promised to get him out of there early, and she had, but it was horrible. they did bed checks and even though he was seventeen in half a year, he had to call ahead to arrange to sleep over at the blakes, and they always had to talk to bellamy first. the responsible adult, what bullshit.

it wasn’t so bad. he called out almost every night, and the group home owners didn’t mind too much because he was trouble when he was around, and he was out of their hair pretty soon.

he much preferred the apartment. it was actually pretty nice, by far nicer than his house on sanctum street, and it was closer to the centre of town which made getting to work a lot easier for him. after his return to school, he was busy most of the time. he wondered if thats how bellamy felt; constantly on his feet, constantly tired, some part of his body always aching.

octavia was at his front door the morning they were due to return to arkadia high. mbege had driven himself and raven there already, but murphy had denied the ride to walk with octavia through the brisk september air. he was almost looking forward to returning. through all of the court dates and moving and the rest of it, he’d barely seen miller and the others, and they had grown on him more than he previously realised. 

octavia did not seem excited. murphy opened the door with a slice of half burnt toast in his mouth, juggling a cigarette, house keys and his bag in his hands, stopping when he saw through her faked excitement of seeing him, catching the annoyance behind her eyes. “what happened?” he asked, ever so eloquently, ever so sensitive. with a genuine laugh, octavia shook her head and smiled at him. he exited the apartment after swallowing his last bit of toast and replacing it with his cig, locking the door as she talked to him.

“nothing gets past you.” she sounded fond, murphy didn’t mind. “its bellamy. he didn’t graduate, and with everything with you i didn’t even realise. he didn’t fucking tell me! he’s retaking senior year.” murphy nearly dropped his keys, but managed to fumble them into his pocket and take the cigarette from his mouth. 

“what? what the fuck?” he was genuinely shocked. obviously bellamy overworked himself, but he never seemed to actually struggle with school. he did homework and never really went to the parties that murphy knew he was invited to. “how did that even happen? i thought he was like, a giant fuckin’ nerd or something?” he knew bellamy was a giant nerd. they’d argued about donna tartt characters at six pm on the porch while the most beautiful sunset happened right in front of them. he still had bellamy’s copy of the book in his room, with all of its margin notes and underlining and highlighting. 

“he is.” octavia lead the way out of the apartments, murphy in tow “apparently he didn’t go to any of the after school hour catch up sessions, or even really his classes. i think he was working extra hours.” he could hear the guilt in her voice, and he wanted to remind her that it wasn’t her fault. its not like she knew that bellamy had been the one paying the bills for months, even if they all kind of theorised it. “i had to call abby to know all the details, but now that i’m working at the mall, i’m forcing him to drop some hours and study his ass off ‘cus he deserves pretentious english college classes more than anyone else.”

when they reached the car, the small amount of sympathy he felt for bellamy was tucked away. murphy slid into the middle seat in the back, whilst octavia took passenger, and couldn’t help but let a snide smirk crawl onto his face. “senior once more, blake?” he asked casually, leaning forward in between the seats. raven was a senior too, and he silently prayed that the two wouldn’t end up bonding over their hatred for people named john murphy. 

“shut up, murph.” bellamy said, pulling away from the apartment block. he didn’t sound upset.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “fuck, that was embarrassing.” murphy laughed, bitterly, scratching short nails across his arms and watching faint red lines appear on his skin. miller batted his hand away. 
> 
> “no it wasn’t, you idiot.” he knocked his shoulder into murphys and gave him a feigned smile, but that dropped when he noticed octavia returning with bellamy in tow. murphy felt sick again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this picks up literally directly after where the last chapter left off. the fic won’t jump around as much anymore, the most will be a few months here and there. also ive been hinting at it all fic but arkadia is a fictional city that mirrors chicago so… imagine chicago.
> 
> p.s i majorly fucked up the ages throughout this entire fic but i think ive fixed it now? i had to move murphys birthday because of it. they SHOULD be two-ish years apart (eg in this chapter, bellamy is eighteen and murphy is sixteen) &they are two school years apart (eg murphy is a junior and bellamy is retaking senior)
> 
> p.p.s i didn't proof read again sorry

despite the fact murphys entire life flipped within two months, arkadia high didn’t change at all.

after bellamy parked in the student parking, he split off quickly with a kiss to octavias head and a small goodbye to murphy. monty, jasper and miller were waiting by the front of the school, excitedly chatting in the way you did when returning from a drama-packed summer break. they only got more excited when octavia and murphy walked into view. to his genuine surprise, miller more or less tackled the newly minted orphan into a crushing hug. 

“we missed you over summer,” miller said, once he’d pulled back. he gave the shorter of them an awkward bro-pat on the shoulder, nervously jostling his bag strap and fiddling with the fraying threads. “are you good to be here? i mean… after everything.” murphy looked at the front doors of their school, the bright red crest on the doors that swung open every few seconds with groups of students almost taunting him. he wouldn’t say that he was ready, but he was glad to be back and have some semblance of normalcy. he was less excited for the push of college preparing that came with junior year, but he could manage.

“i think.” he answered honestly, giving miller a tight lipped smile. shortly after that, he was pulled along into the school, and to his homeroom that he shared only with miller. jasper, monty and octavia split off in the direction of their own, promising to text their schedules for the new year the second they got them.

miller and murphys homeroom teacher was a decently nice man named sinclair. he was fairly relaxed, laid back and normally let them do what they want. every year for the first hour of the first day, all students would go to homeroom to receive their new schedules and do peppy team building games if their teacher seed fit. sinclair normally didn’t partake in them, but he would sit on his desk and ask about their summer the way any friendly teacher would.

murphy grimaced when he read his own schedule. it was mostly a lot of lessons that he didn’t really give a shit about, ones he’d probably skip out of going to most of the time, but it wasn’t all bad. the one thing he was looking forward to was ap english literature and composition, even if he would be amongst a class of seniors. realisation set into his bones, and he couldn’t contain the audible groan he let out. 

“what’s up?” miller asked, nudging murphys arm. murphy pushed his own timetable towards his friend, along with a navy highlighter. the previous year, the five of them had colour coded dots next to each class that they shared. octavia was red, monty and jasper were yellow and green respectively, and miller had a dark blue. murphy sighed, uncapping the pen and dotting next to the classes they shared, whilst miller did the same. 

“ap lit with the seniors. unless they kicked him off ‘cus he didn’t graduate, i think bellamy shares it with me.” he grumbled like a stroppy petulant child, doodling a little knife next to the last class they shared on the rota, trigonometry. miller rolled his eyes at the drawing. 

“how did he even get into ap in the first place if he never went to school?” nathan inquired, sliding murphys timetable back over. he checked his phone briefly, and murphy new it was the group chat ever so cleverly titled the ‘muskaqueers’, despite there being five of them, after octavia had made the discovery she wasn’t all too straight either. jasper had thought it was hilarious at the time. 

murphy shrugged. “he’s good at english, really good, so i guess they made an exception? or at least bent the rules a little, cus they know about the situation with o and stuff.” he turned his own phone over on the desk and opened the group chat. apparently their friends had been let out a little early, with twenty minutes left before their first proper lesson of the year. “do you think we could convince sinclair to let us out of here early?”

nathan miller was, in the most non offensive way, a bit of a teachers pet. he didn’t do it on purpose, but he was smart and overly friendly and his dad was the coach of the basketball team, so he had a good in with most of the staff. the ones who didn’t know he was john murphys other best friend, at least. sinclair was at the top of the list, since he also had a bit of a soft spot for the orphan also. it didn’t take much convincing, just explaining they wanted to compare timetables with their other friends, who were waiting in one of the small student common rooms a few hallways down.

they all shared their schedules once miller and murphy had joined them, uncapping coloured highlighters and enthusing about the selective lessons they’d picked for that year. luckily, he only had ap literature, elective writing and us history by himself, which was far better than the previous year. the five of them all had physics together, which murphy knew already was going to be a train wreck for their teachers, but complete and utter fun for him. it also meant that if he snatched a seat next to monty, he could pass the class with ease.

when the bell sounded, they were all too excited about the new year to dread the unceremoniously boring lessons that followed homeroom. monty and miller had precalc, jasper had french and octavia had phsys ed, which left murphy to wonder the longest distance to his creative writing class by himself. 

he took the walk as time to settle back into the swing of school, without the excited rush he’d been pushing through all that morning. the further to the back of the school he got, the emptier it was, hallways filling with the slightly chilled air that crept in through the open windows and fire escape doors. there were a few strayed leaves on the floor, orange at their crisp edges. there were only one or two students dotted around, mostly heading away from the backend of the school that wasn’t all that used. 

bellamy was one of them. he looked frustrated, way too focused to notice his sisters friend crossing him in the hallway. his eyes were locked on the floor and he seemed to be mumbling to himself, as if memorising something. murphy tried to ignore it as he kicked open the door for creative writing, which had a surprisingly busy class. 

despite being best friends with octavia, and having a fairly solid group of friends, murphy was anything but a sociable person. he chose to be alone as much as he could, (octavia not included; she was a lapse in the blueprint) and when it came to his lessons, he would brood in the back like any normal orphaned seventeen year old with a hate fuel for the world. he was perfectly happy that way, and with neither of his closest friends nor jasper or monty in his class, he was preparing to spend the entire sub-hour alone for the remainder of the semester. 

john mbege was in his creative writing elective. sat in the furthest back corner, next to a janky heater that sputtered out lukewarm heat onto shivering arms and risen goosebumps. he looked perfectly at peace, kicked back with his torn and shredded vans on the desk, arms crossed behind his head to support it against the wall, his eyes tight shut and his mouth tight lipped as he hummed to a tune that murphy couldn’t quite hear from the door. he cast his eyes to the rest of the class, who were speaking in hushed tones or overbearing shouts, all grouped together across every other available table. make new friends, or hang out with his roommate for a little longer. mbege was nice, and chill, so he picked the latter.

before he could even pull the worryingly squeaky chair back from the desk to occupy it, mbege cracked a single eye open and let a self satisfied smile cross over his lips. he gestured to the chair with a wave of a hand, a gentle ‘go for it’, not that murphy would have taken a different seat given mbege refused to let him sit. he’d fight for it out of spite, but he didn’t have to, so he twisted his body into the uncomfortable metal and gave a forced half smile. 

their teacher had arrived half an hour prior, apparently, but they were hidden amongst the rambunctious teenagers and cluttered chairs of an all too poor high school who hired any old man or woman naive enough to take the opportunity. arkadia high didn’t have a bad repuatation, but it should’ve. the peeling paint walls and half smashed windows and canteen slop should’ve been enough proof, if not for the statistically high number of delinquents it produced. the teacher, however, didn’t seem perturbed. he was a rather stout man, humming away happily to himself, shrouded behind overbearing teenagers. murphy only caught the sight of him because he’d purposefully scanned every person in the room with a harsh glare. 

he was more so shocked when the paunchy man dragged himself up onto the front desk and clasped his hands behind his back, a great wide smile on his face. how odd he was, watching all of the teenagers loud chatter die down into a quiet lull, staring up at him like he was crazed. strangely enough, his tactic work. a few people gave sharp laughs, but even those subdued until there was nothing but silence of unease and hesitation. “why do i stand up here?” he asked, displaying his hands out in front of him as if he were orchestrating an ensemble, palms facing up to the cracked, decaying ceiling. 

“to feel taller?” murphy shot back, quick as a fox, his tongue darting out before he could stop it. the teenagers that were beginning to settle in assorted seats rather than the faces of desks laughed, and his danced his fingers atop the desk, elated and feeling the buzz of excitement that came with a new class. his teacher laughed also, pointing one of his fingers directly at him.

“very good!” he returned his hands to his sides, snaking them into the pockets of his dark corduroy pants. murphy dandy think someone could dress more like an english creative writing teacher if they tried their very best. “sadly, im rather okay with my stature, so you’re not technically correct.” the man had a flouncy tie, one with small brightly coloured patterns that murphy couldn’t discern from the very back of the room. it, although overbearing and bright, was the only brightly coloured piece of clothing he wore, accessory to a white shirt and the aforementioned pants that were god ugly to murphy. “any more guessers?”

mbege sighed beside murphy, who wondered how he could possibly be bored when there was an escape psychiatric ward patient apparently there to teach them about how to write, creatively. he looked over at his roommate, just briefly, who had a small smile on his face. mbege eyed the teacher before looking back to his friend, his face twisted into an expression of pure bewilderment, so exaggerated that murphy laughed sharply into the palm of his hand in an attempt to muffle it. “i stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.” the man, their teacher, drew murphys attention back in an instant. he spoke with such vigour and certainty, like no other teacher that he’d ever seen lecture before, that it was captivating. impossible to ignore him. he went silent for a moment, glancing around the classroom and all of its peeling decorations, display work from five years ago tearing away from the walls and a clock that hadn’t had its batteries replaced since the nineties. “you see, the world looks very different from up here.” 

no one made a noise. murphys eyes trained quickly across his classmates, who were all silent, no remnants of the rowdy teenagers they had been five minutes prior. they were all looking up at the curious man with genuine interest. “dont believe me? come see for yourself, come on.” the class hesitated, but murphy was wired differently to his peers. he lurched out of his seat in a half beat, him and a small girl he didn’t recognise being the only people to stand up. he crossed his way to the desk, hearing people hesitantly get up, wonder over slowly. 

the girl climbed up first, taking the hand from their teacher. she was pretty, extremely so, her skin a light taupe colour, decorated with an interesting marking on her face (tattoo? no way, they were high schoolers. makeup most likely, though it looked flat against her skin, the way a tattoo would) that curved from above her eye to the corner of her mouth. “just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way. even though it may seem silly, or wrong, you must try.” the captivating man stepped off the desk with bent knees, leaving enough space for murphy to climb up next to the girl. she was grinning, and when she turned to look at him, her smile didn’t drop. he couldn’t help but beam back. the man stood in front of them, speaking quieter then, almost directly to the pair. “now when you read, dont just consider what the authors thinks, consider what you think.” 

murphy glanced around the room, just one sweep of the eyes around the decorations in a mock way of how the strange man had, and bent his knees to step off the desk. “you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.” the words were rattling away in his brain as he crossed back over to his desk, turning to sit on the front of it rather than crawl awkwardly back into the uncomfortable frame of the chair again. he watched his classmates follow in his footsteps, following the directions they’d been give while their teacher still monologued away. “thoreau said most men lead lives of quiet desperation, dont be resigned to that.” he watched as mbege stepped of the desk, a small smile on his face placed there only out of entertainment rather than ponder. 

“your task to me, today, is to prove you can do exactly that.” the man clasped his hands behind his back once again, only separating them when he stepped forward to the whiteboard behind his desk, students still stepping off one-by-one like a factory conveyer belt. he uncapped a pen an wrote in large, bold letters ‘julian morrow’, which murphy supposed was his name. “i want you to take a person from your life, whoever it may be, and i want you to write about them. i dont need to know names, i just want you to change your ideology of who they are. write about someone you love acting out a terrible deed, or someone you hate being awfully domestic.” murphy thought about bellamy, how mundane he looked in his uniform for thirty second pizza place, and how nervous he’d been handing over a worn paperback book. he thought about their rough shoves and biting words and the times where their insults had gone too far. he thought about raven how much she hated him, the limp that followed her around and haunted her movements. he thought about his mom, dead. “you have two weeks, but id like you to outline for the last thirty minutes of this class.”

folders were being handed around, all with printed named labels. murphy got handed his after an apprehensive ‘are you john?’ from a young, baby faced looking girl who flinched when he snapped back ‘murphy’ and snatched the item from her hands. he was aware that mbege was staring at him as he retrieved an empty notebook from his bag, and a pen, and started tapping the end of it against the pad. he thought of everyone in his life that hated him, which really shouldn’t have been so easy. he scrawled out a list optimistically titled ‘people that hate me’. the names came so easy to him that without stopping, half the page was filled with names in small, chicken scratch handwriting, all with many spelling mistakes he didn’t care to try and correct. 

“hate is a lack of imagination.” a voice cut in from behind the desk, and murphy snapped the notebook closed with a jolt of movement. he dropped the pen to the desk and focused his eyes into a narrow glare, eyes dusting over an ugly tie that he could now see was decorated in tiny little primary coloured, patterned fairy lights. he curled his fingers around the edge of the desk, embarrassment burning in his stomach, slowly drowning in the feeling of annoyance that coated it. 

“i guess i’m fairly pedestrian, then.” he deadpanned. julian morrow, mr. morrow, chortled at his words, shaking his head like he truly, utterly didn’t believe that, and yet he spoke that overused quote with such confidence and surety, the same way he did everything else.

“hate can also be easier than love. infatuation is temperamental and tiring. but to abhor, now, that's something you can use. love humiliates you, but hatred cradles you.” his eyes were so wildly searching, like he wanted to pick apart each of his students and force them to perform as well as they could, and it terrified murphy. something inside of him stirred, and he was so used to be overtaken by anger that he assumed it was the same aptitude. he supposed there was truth in the words; hate was easy. it came so naturally to him, deflective and blaming. the burning feeling in his skin was always amplified in such a sickly satisfying way when the understanding that he hated someone, something, whatever he was directing his attention at, came to. 

he waited until julian walked away to nervously pull the notebook back towards him. with a fresh pair of eyes and a rekindled perspective (how funny that five minute bit had been, and how much it had already changed his way of thinking) he cracked open the notebook to his list again. he served through the names, crossing some out with harsh scribbled lines until there were few left. bellamy, his mom, raven, his dad. a bit of a miserable list, really. his best friends brother, his birth parents and one of his two roommates.   
the book was snatched away from him, to the side of him that time, and murphy had to bite back the urge to scream when he realised it was mbege. he lunged for it, nonetheless, but his frail arms didn’t quite match up to his much more lanky friend, who simply just held the pad high above his head as if he were teasing a child, eyes reading the words and skimming past the etched dashes. he frowned, eventually, and placed handed the book that seemed to be proving more as a distraction than a tool at that point, back down onto the desk in front of his roommate. “you know raven doesn’t really hate you, right?” he asked, eyes pulled tight over his jutting brow bone.

murphy huffed, shoving the book as far deep into his bag as he possibly could. his fingers dashed across a small cardboard pack of marlboros, and he wished so desperately to duck out of the class. “i crippled her. like, permanently, in case you didn’t know. that limp? that was me.”

mbege rolled his eyes, and murphy mustered up every ounce of self control he barely contained to not strangle him. he really liked mbege, and he didn’t really want on-file documented cases of nearly killing both of his roommates, separately. he closed his eyes and thought of the ply wood walls on sanctum street, of octavias soft eyes that peered at him from behind a soft blanket one night they’d stayed there, comforting and warm and gentle in the blake nature. more calming memories crossed his mind, like getting tipsy on fruity alcoholic drinks with monty and jasper in the southside skatepark, working late thursday night shifts with bellamy at thirty second when everything was quiet and they could banter without disturbed looks from customers, game nights with miller and octavia where they played video games on millers xbox until the sun rose behind the curtains. 

with a moments hesitation, he wondered what those memories were like for the other parties. monty and jasper probably considering why they’d been stuck with the snarky, bitter asshole that always lurked around octavia, too buzzed to care after a while. bellamy, praying and hoping to escape the empty pizza place as soon as he could, his unusual kindness being the only thing that kept his insults to a maximum of harsh repartee. miller and octavia filling their souls with pity as they housed the poor orphan yet another night, watching his too-skinny hands try to master how to use a controller like he’d never used one before. murphy wasn’t sure he liked the idea of considering perspective.

“she doesn’t hate you.” mbege said, again, stoic and sure of himself. “i know, because she told me. she told me everything, all of it that happened. she looked, i dont know… sad? regretful? i think she’s just scared, you know, because im not sure she’s ever told anyone what actually happened. she’s not a very ‘ask for help’ kind of person, so being forced to confront it after years, all at once, it probably just freaked her out.”

“she still hates me.” murphy bit back, opening his eyes to stare direct anger into his roommate. “she reminds me every day.”

the other boy shrugs, seemingly unbothered by his roommates distinct distaste for one another. murphy knew then that his nonchalance that he always seemed to hold was an act, probably a defensive one. the trio of them were all orphans with extenuating circumstances of trauma, so reading them normally came easy to him, especially mbege. he wouldn’t be trying to fix things between them at all, if he truly didn’t care. “she’s still scared. i know she doesn’t hate me, because she explicitly told me ‘i dont hate murphy’. that sounds pretty-matter-of-fact to me.”

before either of them could add another word, the bell rang loud in their ears. it was loud and brutal at the back end of the school, speakers directly next to the door to exit the classroom that the two boys’ table was positioned dangerously near. using it as his out, murphy jumped from his seat with such vigour that he had to catch himself from tripping, his whole body on fire with the desire to hit something, to scream, that he didn’t hear julian’s words of the details on their coursework as he was the first to shoulder through the door. 

he marched down the hall as fast as he could without taking off in a run, and slammed his body against a fire escape door to exit the interior of the high school completely. he had break with miller and octavia, he knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as shaking hands carded through the few items he had in the backpack that was unzipped and clutched in one hand. he hadn’t had time to zip it up and throw it over a shoulder during his hasty exit, but it made finding his cigarettes and lighter easier. his fingers caught on the curled coils of the notebook as he retrieved the pack, and his heart hammered in a flurried mix of intense emotions. he wanted to sprint some, to tear pace across the track fields in front of him, through the woods backing them, and not stop until he was curled in the comforting walls of the treehouse on sanctum street. 

john murphy knew what it felt like to cry until your throat felt raw and your lungs couldn’t quite grip onto settled breaths. with trembling hands, he brought the tab to his lips and lit it with his lighter, watching the flame burn away for a few moments before resettling the gas. subcutaneous was a word he’d heard his father use once; thats how he felt the burn of the flame, under his skin, eating away at him slowly until he spontaneously combusted into a pile of ash and resentment. for who, he wasn’t sure.

he was barely three strides away from the fire escape door, watching his shredded converse kick up tiny stones that caught in the laces, the threads prising apart in old age, when he smacked shoulder to shoulder with whatever poor unfortunate soul that happened to accidentally knock his freshly lit cigarette into a small drain puddle. his words caught in his throat, but his hands seemed to react quick enough, grabbing the offending person and slamming them into the wall, a guttural growl crawling out of his mouth. a satisfying fracture was heard when the mystery person hit the wall, and murphy saw through his rage daze that the person was bigger than him, in height and muscle, and they had curled fuscous hair and a smattering of freckles on tan skin that resembled constellations on golden skies and, oh. it was bellamy.

“murphy, calm down!” he ordered, attempting to grab the youngers boys wrists but they were still shaking, and murphy really hated his tone, and the way he lightly held his shoulders instead of his previous attempt. he felt the burn finally overtake him, after weeks of gradual smoulder that left his skin marred and his nerves on edge, and he still couldn’t speak because he was just so angry that he couldn’t help it when he slammed a coiled fist into bellamy’s stomach, cooling satisfaction smothering him when the older boy bit out a cry. he couldn’t help it when he didn’t stop, his strikes becoming more and more erratic the more he let the fire take over him even though the embers start to numb, or when bellamy caught his wrists finally, spinning him around to in turn jostled him against the wall. he felt nothing but red hot inferno when bellamy hit him back, a straight punch to his jaw that hurt like hell but thats where he’d always reside, giving him enough motivation to bring his head forward, hard, to head-butt the older boy and tackle him to the ground. he got a few good hits in, blood coating his fist and bellamy’s face, before he was flipped and had them returned. he heard someone shouting, but it wasn’t either of them. the weight on top of him was pulled away and he was forced to his feet. he trashed out, maddened eyes landing on bellamy and aching to beat the shit out him more, to feel his bones crack and his lip split, but another person grabbed his other side until his arms were forced behind his back like he was being arrested.

a bucket of water was thrown over murphys fire, and the dark red static over his eyes cleared. it was miller, the one now more or less bear hugging him from behind to keep him in place, speaking in a hushed tone right into his ear, comforting words. bellamy was hunched over opposite them, a few metres away, his eyes wide and angry and something else murphy still couldn’t see, his face already darkening with bruises and smattered with deep red. octavia was next to him, holding onto his shoulders and her tone sounded terrified. there were a few other people, but he couldn’t see again. he stopped fighting all together, and when miller delicately let his arms go, they dropped to his sides. bellamy had a hand clamped over his nose, blood trickling out the gaps between his fingers. it was probably broken. 

“murph, can you hear me?” miller asked gently, stepping just in front of him. murphy looked up at him, his hands shaking again, along with probably every other part of his body. god, he was going to be sick, or scream, or finally start running. his eyes darted to the empty track field and the trodden path through the woods he knew was there, but miller caught his elbow in a gentle hold before he could dash. “please don’t run. please.”

octavia was next to him then, but he couldn’t feel anything. his whole body felt numb and suddenly his knees were pliable enough to not support his weight, and he fell onto the floor with new scars decorating his elbows and fists. he was fairly certain he was crying, which was only confirmed when octavia pulled him against her the way she had the only other times he’d cried by her side, and he felt his body shudder with humiliation. miller was still by his side, now crouching next to the pair, and murphy angled his body until he was being hugged by both of them and he was sobbing then, loud and harsh but he couldn’t stop it. he’d been called a monster plenty of times, but he’d never really believed it. but bellamy was… sure, he hated murphy, but murphy didn’t hate him. they threw halfhearted insults at each other and pushed each other in the hallway but he didn’t want to beat the everliving shit out of him, not really. he’d though about it so many times, but bellamy was kind and gentle and patient and octavias big brother who she loved more than the entire world. 

and yet she was cradling him like a baby, pressing gentle kisses to his forehead as he cried into millers shoulder. when his world cleared, he blinked and shifted up, counting how many people had seen his mental break. octavia, miller and of course bellamy. monty, who looked more concerned than anything, jasper, who had a hand on bellamy’s shoulder and was nervously glancing around, and mbege. he wanted to run so badly. 

“we can go if you want,” octavia whispered to him, squeezing him gently in her arms. “just me, you, and miller. we can take bells car, he won’t mind.” murphy was pretty sure he would, considering the events that just unfolded, but he wanted to be out of view as quickly as possible, so he uttered a ‘please’, however uncharacteristic of him, and let himself be shielded by the two of them when they stood up. everyone was shooed away by miller, and surprisingly monty, and octavia took bellamy just slightly away by his elbow, out of earshot.

“fuck, that was embarrassing.” murphy laughed, bitterly, scratching short nails across his arms and watching faint red lines appear on his skin. miller batted his hand away. 

“no it wasn’t, you idiot.” he knocked his shoulder into murphys and gave him a feigned smile, but that dropped when he noticed octavia returning with bellamy in tow. murphy felt sick again.

he could see the older boys nose, by then, half dried blood smeared around it, but appearing in-tact and in the right place. lucky idiot didn’t get it broken, then, he though resolutely as he stepped a little closer to miller, forcing his expression to harden. bellamy looked nervous, and slowly opened his mouth to speak, dread filling every one of murphys bones. “im sorry.” he said, like he had months before, soft and shy and too many things that he shouldn’t have sounded like after murphy went full crazy on him. “that was. that was definitely my fault. i really shouldn’t have… shit, im sorry. i shouldn’t have hit you back, or pushed or- god, fuck.” he laughed, strained and genuine, “im really sorry.”

silence fell over the four of them, as murphy hunted through his brain on what was appropriate to say. he felt octavia’s hand slip into his own. “it wasn’t you.” he settled on, closing his eyes as tight as he could, arms trembling again. “i think i think i would’ve done that to anyone. it wasn’t you, you didn’t do anything wrong. i’m sorry for, y’know.” he forced a small, sly smirk onto his face, one that contrasted his words but didn’t make them appear forced or false. octavia gripped his hand, tight, for just a second. “there’s something fucking… wrong with me.” he rasped.

octavia brushed a gentle, caring hand through his hair, and her smile was so tender that it made him feel young again. “there is nothing wrong with you, murph. nothing.” he didn’t quite agree, but he nodded nonetheless, numb and exhausted. 

he gave her a weak smile and rubbed a thumb over the back of her hand. “can we go watch merlin?” she nodded and laughed, though it came out wet and sad and he wanted to hug her so tight but he wasn’t sure she was the one who technically needed the comforting. 

“i can drive.” bellamy said quietly, just loud enough to hear. octavia looped an arm around murphys side, holding up some of his weight as he relaxed against her. she didn’t say anything, but she looked up at him expectantly, like she was checking it was okay with him. “i have no classes today anyway.” that definitely wasn’t true, but murphy would interrogate him once he’d regained his annoying, bratty personality after a long nap and at least three long episodes of watching merlin flirt with arthur desperately. he nodded, and let his body go into autopilot as they made their way to the student parking lot, avoiding the few stray teachers dotted around as the beginning of third period creeped along. 

three hours later, murphy was curled up on the old sofa, octavia beside him and miller on the floor just in front, both of them breathing evenly as they slept. the curtains were drawn, so the living room was dark other than the warm flicker of the television, the volume set low. there was a pile of blankets across the three of them, and millers head was resting back onto octavias leg as he napped. it was probably only around lunchtime, and although murphy was tired, he couldn’t get his eyes to stay shut. what an eventful first day back it had been. he felt more than bad about making the two of them miss classes, along with bellamy. and his almost-broken nose.

desperate to mellow himself out, he gently pulled back his own blanket to rest it over miller and climbed over his body to stand up. he stretched his arms out, and unzipped his bag as quietly as he could, fishing around for his pack of cigarettes. his lighter had been dropped just before the fight, he assumed, so he soundlessly crept into the kitchen and ignited the stove to light the smoke, before darting out to the front porch without taking a drag. 

he was too busy trying to close the front door without making a sound to notice bellamy sat out the front, his back against a support beam as he sat atop one of the bannisters, until he turned around. murphy hesitated then, but bellamy didn’t say anything, raising his own cig in a silent greeting. “i wanted to ask you something.” bellamy practically mumbled as murphy took the first drag, feeling the smoke coil in his throat and burn his lungs with a nulled sting. “or, recommend something.”

murphy raised an eyebrow, not bothering to speak. he didn’t feel much like speaking after that morning. bellamy fished for something in his pocket, and held out a small, black card with a cautious hand. the younger of the two took it, reading the words printed onto it and feeling a slight ignition of his own, deep in the pit of his stomach. he didn’t have the will to put it out, but the flame didn’t grow. “i won’t make you do anything, and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.” he sounded like young bellamy again, the same one that had pushed a copy of the secret history across the kitchen table, and physically guarded a young murphy from police officers, twice. “i just think they could help.”

“i don't need help.” murphy lied, voice sharp and mean. the older boy didn’t seem at all perturbed by it. pressing a thumb hard into the card, he slid it slowly into his back pocket and forced his eyes away from bellamy, who was still lounging on the bannister holding a cigarette and looking like a stunningly aesthetic painting, blazoned with golden skin in the kiss of the afternoon summer sunlight. murphy faintly mused what he would look like under a sunset, and felt his throat tighten as a million and one idyllic adjectives forced their way into his brain that was already forming poetry in misspelt shapes. 

“maybe you don’t need it, but there’s no harm in a little for free.” 

murphy didn’t go home that night. he stayed up late with miller and octavia, and all three of them clambered up to octavias room just past three in the morning. they went to school the next day, and everyone acted like nothing had happened. when murphy returned to his apartment the following evening, after an underwhelming, boring day of classes he mostly skipped and a five hour shift at thirty second, mbege apologised the second he stepped foot in the threshold. raven was even strangely quiet, and when he woke up on the wednesday, there was a tiny, handcrafted metal fox made out of scraps in front of his bedroom door. he puts it on his empty windowsill.

on wednesday morning, he has us history. it passes easily, with mbege covering for him whilst he napped, and then they slowly walk to creative writing together in silence. murphy wants to ask him why he chose creative writing, of all the electives, but he supposes he would get the question in return just as easily. 

julian was a refreshing restart to the week, reminding them of the assignment that had completely slipped murphys mind since monday, and then busying them with simple ten minute writing tasks that actually turned out to be fun. at the end of the hour, the man stopped murphy as he attempted to exit, a lot less dramatically than the first time. “id like to talk to you, murphy, is it?” the boy nods, and nervously follows behind his teacher until they’re at the front desk, where julian pulls a chair out for him before sitting behind the table at his own seat. murphy sits, and waits quietly for him to start talking. he had already decorated the room a little since their first lesson, just with minimalist posters of some literary authors quotes, but they make the room look less depressing. “i saw what happened between you and mr. blake on monday.” julian notes, offhand and nonchalantly. murphy freezes, his hand tightening around the strap of his backpack, preparing for detention or punishment of some form. “although you must be unaware, since you’ve attended neither of the lessons, i also run your ap literature and composition class, so i have had the pleasure of this talk with bellamy already.”

murphy nearly cursed out loud, and wondered why bellamy hadn’t told him that, or at least shot him a text to briefly say something, anything. they hadn’t really seen each other since, but a text would’ve been fine. “he explained what happened, mostly. i won’t ask you, even though i know you’ll tell me different truths, because i quite frankly don’t care to give you detentions. im aware you two are friends, no?” murphy didn’t really think so, but he nodded anyway. “and that was all sorted, so it’s in the past. that doesn’t mean i cant at least express concern for one of my students.” murphy guessed that he was listening to the man speak because the concern was toward him, not so much bellamy. “i told bellamy this, too. but i wanted to ask you directly.”

he didn’t say anything else. murphy felt a little dumb, because he didn’t understand what was happening. “and?”

“and, i wanted to know your coping mechanism.” julian was so blunt with his words that it made murphy want to scream. his coping mechanism? what was he apparently supposed to be coping with, at all? “i watched all of it happen. i know bellamy didn’t provoke you, and i know you didn’t even realise it was him. i’m not going to force you to do anything, i am simply just curious.” murphy swallowed tightly. he supposed if he wanted to get out of the little interrogation without a detention or message to the nearest psychiatric ward, he was probably best to come up with an answer. and he realised that he didn’t really need to lie at all.

“i run.” he stated, quietly and unsure. “not always. just when i can’t… get out of my head. i run until i stop thinking.” julian smiled, and he reminded murphy so much of keating at the bookstore in the city centre of arkadia, truly just a man with a kind heart and fondness for mean sons of bitches. 

the teacher pulled forward a pencil sharper, one of the old ones that murphy knew his father owned, the metal boxes with a turning handle on the back. he began to sharpen pencils, slowly, like he wanted the conversation to feel casual for the both of them. “are you on the track and field team?” he asked, and murphy wanted to laugh at the idea of it.

“no,” he chose instead. “i dont work well with others.”

julian just shrugged, placing a newly sharpened pencil on the next, perfectly vertical. he began sharpening another. “so, don’t do relay.” the idea of being on a school sports team was utterly ridiculous to murphy, who argued with everyone and at least attempted to physically fight half. “this isn’t me just saying this to you. i am strongly suggesting you do. i promise you, if you try it, it could help you regain some jurisdiction. you seem like a person who enjoys to be utterly in control, to me.” murphy could have taken that like an insult, but he didn’t. he watched as the man lined the second sharpened pencil perfectly even with the first, and thought about the idea in his head. track didn’t seem so bad, especially when he had spent the previous years sitting on the bleachers during nearly all of the team meets regardless, with octavia’s cheerleading and millers basketball running along at the same time.   
“i’m a junior, though.” he tugged at the seams of his jeans, watching the thread fray in his fingers. “isn’t it a bit late?”

“technically speaking, no. and practically speaking? i bet you’re faster than half of those freshmen anyway.” he had a sly grin on his face, one that murphy couldn’t help but return, since it was too in his own nature. “if you would like, i can put in a word with the coach and captain, if you would like to try out for the team. she happens to be a student of mine, in your elective.” murphy didn’t know anything about the track team, nor the other students in the creative writing class, so he had no idea who julian was hinting at. before he could back out of it, he nodded in agreement. 

the remainder of the day was boring, filled with a whole lot of classes he was forcefully dragged to by any one of his friends. he had work after school until seven in the evening, and his only company was a coworker he didn’t really know, nor did he particularly like. when he eventually got back to his apartment, he had six missed calls from octavia, five of them being facetime. they called as he cooked a microwavable meal and crawled into bed, and they only hung up when murphys crappy wifi cut out around three in the morning.

thursday came with a small sense of looming dread. he woke to the loud ringing of a random pop song that octavia had selected as a custom ringtone, cursing as the crisp drums played directly into his ear. he grabbed the phone and accepted the call, knowing that she’d just spam him if he didn’t answer. “what the fuck do you want?” murphy snarked, showing his early bird attitude. he kicked his duvet off his body and sat up to peer out of the window just next to his bed, low enough that he could sit and stare out at the beautiful view of the backs of twin apartments and the alley of bins in between. 

of course, octavia sounded far too chipper. “oh, nothing, bellamy just told me you have ap lit together so we’re picking you up in twenty and going to starbucks.” he groaned as loud as he could, but shuffled off the bed despite himself, shivering as he exited his warm, comfortable paradise for hard wood floor and a scarcely decorated bedroom. “also, there’s been gossip going around.”

that wad never a good sign, especially not if octavia decided that said gossip was important enough to talk to him about even before their first coffee of the day. normally she would save it, if it were general gossip, until at least bellamy or miller was with them. “and?” murphy asked, a little shortly, bitter early morning grumpiness creeping into his words. he propped the phone between his shoulder and ear, searching through his organised-messy piles of clothes that he hadn’t bought a dresser for yet, and picked out an outfit without much though. 

“and, a little birdie told me you have a tryout today. for track and field?” 

“shit.” he whispered, awkwardly stepping into his tight jeans and shimmying them up his legs. it was still only august, but they lived in arkadia and the weather could be all too temperamental that time of year, so he opted for a thin mocha coloured sweater and tugged it over his head. “listen, o, i dont wanna do it. ill probably flunk it. my fucking,” he pulled the phone away from his ear to jam his feet in his shoes, “my fucking creative writing teacher made me sign up, says he saw everything that, um, happened between me and bellamy. wants me to have a vent process or some dumb shit like that.”

shoving a few odd pens from his cluttered desk into his bag, along with his creative writing folder, murphy exited his bedroom and dumped the backpack onto the two-seater sofa in the small open plan lounge-kitchenette of their shared apartment. mbege was sat on the sofa eating a piece of toast, and murphy could hear loud music of sharp guitar and heavy drums from through ravens door. he gave mbege a small wave, who yelled a ‘hello octavia!’ to the phone, even as murphy rolled his eyes and crossed to the kitchen to grab a novelty size smoothie bottle from the fridge. she said hello back, even if he couldn’t hear. “i agree with him, y’know.” octavia said after a while of monologging her exact actions into the microphone. “your english teacher? yeah, he’s right. i think it would be good for you, plus track runs at the same time as cheer most of the time so i’d be on the field, or just over in the gym.”   
murphy could hear the traffic of arkadia in the background, so he knew her and bellamy were already on their way. out of use for future reference marked under ‘john murphys tremendously short list of good deeds’, he asked mbege if he wanted to ride with them to school. he noted they were going to starbucks first, and that was enough to deter his roommate (who was the only one of the three that could actually drive, anyway). 

by the time octavia had arrived, murphy had managed to saddle the conversation of his track team tryout. he knew that it was in vain, and that she’d only bring it up at the drive-thru where bellamy could quiz him too, which was considerably worse, but he’d always been one for procrastination over smart ideas. 

bellamy parked in front of the apartment complex and didn’t say a word when murphy got in his usual seat of the middle-back, leaning forward as octavia enthusiastically talked about the semester plans for the cheer squad. murphy didn’t mean to zone out, really. octavia was the only person he full-heartedly bothered to listen to all the time, no matter what she was talking about, but he was a little side-tracked by her brothers still daunting silence. bellamy wasn’t a talkative person around him at all, but he normally at least made some snarky comment as a backhanded ‘good morning’, and yet he was still silent as they peeled into the small starbucks parking lot. 

“octavia, could you go in to order the drinks?” bellamy spoke finally, calm and cold and weirdly terrifying. a small pit formed in murphys stomach, and he briefly considered climbing out of the cracked window and walking the remainder of the way to the high school.

“what? the drive thru is open, i can see it.”

“o, please.” he looked over at her, soft brown eyes speaking words silently, the way only family, blood or found, could do. his sister briefly looked back at murphy in the back seat and sighed dramatically, not without giving him a comforting pat to the shoulder.

the car was silent even after she slammed the door, even after she crossed the car park, and they watched her slightly waved brown hair whip behind her as she slid into the coffee shop. “so, any reason you locked me in here with you? very smart, by the way, after everything that happened on monday.” murphy joked, wincing slightly at his own words. no one had mentioned monday at all, or even hinted at it, past the card that had been handed over to him. in his defence, it was his own breakdown, he was allowed to make jokes about it. “you’re not trying to proposition me are you blake? ‘cus i gotta say, you’re not bad looking but my standards are more like your sister.”

“shut up, murphy.” bellamy sneered, and for once, he sounded genuine. for just a moment, the silence returned, and murphy wanted to strangle himself rather than be in the car at that moment. he was about to get out and join octavia in the shop when the older teenager turned in his seat, craning his neck and twisting his torso to face him properly. he looked tired, with dusky maroon smudges under his eyes, his face appearing slightly more drawn, his cheekbones a little more prominent. there was a vague hint of irritation in his eyes, but they were wide with something more akin to sadness. “for once, just shut up.”

a sting of something that felt like hate sparked at the corners of murphys heart. “okay.”

bellamy opened his mouth, eyes narrowing as he searched for words, and then closed it again. he was looking past murphy, and the soft tint of sorrow in his eyes melted to genuine anger. the doors were probably locked by then, so there was no running. maybe if he was quiet and jumped quickly, he could grab the keys off blake. “you’re going to the track tryout, aren’t you?”

murphy laughed. “is that what you wanted to talk about?”

bellamy’s mouth flattened into a line, and murphy was sure he was about to be punched, or strangled, or thrown out of the window on a highway. “no. no, murphy, its not.” it was hot out. murphy cursed himself for wearing a sweater, watching sun beams heat bonnets to stoves and young kids walking their way to school complain loudly about the weather, words inaudible from a distance but their expressions and gestures telling enough. he felt like he was suffocating. “you need to stay away from me.”

that was a crash of ice cold water enough. 

“what?” he mumbled through a laugh, almost tripping over the single syllable. he felt sick and as cold as an ice bath, despite the fact his skin was warmed from the sun. he wanted to reach over the seat for bellamy’s shoulder, use the small part of his brain that could handle serious situations to ask what the hell was happening, or if it was a stupid joke, but he didn’t have quite even control for that. his vision was already slightly blurred, anxious dragons spitting fire at the frozen coals in his stomach. “very funny, blake.”

“im serious.” bellamy turned in his seat again, using two hands to grip the steering wheel so hard that his tan skin whitened at the knuckles, leaving scarred splotches and split bones dark and visible. the corner of his jaw, curling around his face and out of vision, was so tensed that murphy was sure he’d hear teeth crunch. “i need you to stay away from me, or me from you, it doesn’t matter. we cant be near each other.” it was strange that murphy felt so utterly crushed, as if he’d had his heart broken, but he’d never taken well to rejection. although they weren’t friends, being told they didn’t even want to be around you was a different type of rejection. “and i don’t want octavia to know.”

murphy laughed again, but it came out crueler. for the first time in his life, he didn’t have the energy to be angry, even though he craved it like an addiction. if he were any other person, he would have cried. but he was john murphy, and all he could bring himself to do was shut his mouth and curl his hands into his sleeves and not even say a word when octavia handed him his drink after she returned to the car. she looked a little apprehensive at both of their silence, opting to turn up the radio to blare out the quietness. none of them spoke for the entire car ride, and when they all got out, bellamy held octavia back to talk to her about something.

murphy didn’t care. he started walking as soon as he was stood up, and practically bolted into the school, to the unused bathrooms behind the gym with peeling walls and crackled tile floors. predictably, it was uninhabited, and he was left alone to climb up onto the raised ledge by a window and light a cigarette. he wondered if octavia would try to find him, but the abandoned bathroom wasn’t even on a list of places she would text. he considered texting miller, who had a strange loyalty to murphy, but he didn’t really want to talk to anyone at all. instead, he spent the fifteen minutes that would’ve been burned through in homeroom to smoke two and a half cigarettes, his throat dry by the last, enough for him to put it out on the tiles and brave the hallways. he was a little late for class, but he hadn’t not been that week. it was only when he realised his first class was ap literature with asshole bellamy and prying julian that he halted on his way out, hand curled around the handle to the bathroom and brain rattling through a million alternatives. unless he wanted to be expelled for not attending any classes, he couldn’t really skip. 

the most he could do was soldier his way through the small aisle of tables, to the very back, and purposefully ignore bellamy’s not so hidden gaze. which is exactly what he did, with the subtlety of a horse in a hospital. forcing your eyes to the floor and all but slamming the door open didn’t do much to mask anger, apparently, but it kept his classmates from making any jives in his direction. murphy hadn’t particularly wanted to spend his first ap class with a group of seniors sulking in the back like any other good angsty teenage boy would, but every time his peripheral landed on a head of dark curls, he couldn’t help but bristle. he practically didn’t listen for the entire class, which didn’t help the fact he’d missed their intro class.

after an hour of glaring at the splintered desk in front of him, the bell chimed, and murphy finally could breathe full breaths again, watching bellamy exit without so much as a glance back. asshole. at least he didn’t have to move, his following class being creative writing with the unusually quiet madman who was staring at murphy from behind his desk with a peculiar look. “john.” he said, evenly, after minutes of drawling silence. murphy would’ve sneered at him for the use of his first name, but he was tired already and it was only second period. “id like you to just work on your project for this hour. ignore what we are doing as a class, im sure you dont need it anyway. i also spoke to the captain f track, who will take you to your tryout at break. no escaping, she’s in this class.” julian spoke bluntly, but not unkindly, and stood up promptly as people started to enter the room, greeting them as they came.

a little deterred, murphy took the opportunity to relax without biting back. he took out his scabby notebook and a pen, returning to his list. parents were cliche, he felt only pity for raven, so that left one person who’d left a particularly scornful mark on his dignity that very morning. uncapping his pen, murphy circled bellamy’s name in scribbles, and turned to a new page, writing the name at the top of the page. he paused for a second, trying to decipher if there were three l’s in the word he wrote, or less. or more. he blinked again and gave up.

when mbege sat down, murphy raised his hand in greeting without taking his eyes of the page. misspelled and written in ugly chicken scratch, he scrawled ‘write a new perspective’ as a subheading, and considered a situation. he could take the easy route, write about something truly heartwarming bellamy had done. it didn’t necessarily have to be toward himself, it could be something for octavia. yet again, that was the easy route. with a spark of determination, murphy ran through a handful of different memories. write something from a new perspective, he would do. he would make fictional bellamy look like a god send and contrast to the screwed up, selfish, heartless asshole he was in the real world. he would allow julian to read it, disguised under a different name that was all to similar to bellamy blake, and maybe even miller or mbege. everyone thought he was a golden boy, and murphy wanted nothing more than to tarnish that. he would spit at him, break bones and smear blood if it meant someone would finally recognise how much of a dickhead he was.

he racked his brain and added a colon to his subheading, following it with ‘the day my dad died’ in jumbled letters, as the briefest and shittest outline he’d ever written. then, he got to work. 

it wasn’t good writing, he knew that. aside the spelling mistakes and random thumb-sized spaces, it was fuelled with nothing but anger, didn’t touch on the expanse of his vocabulary and was an all-around trash piece of writing, but it was a first draft; one filled with his genuine thoughts and emotion. that was all that really mattered. he paused every ten minutes or so to tune in to what his class was talking about, but with a reeling head of thoughts he couldn’t even focus on the words. mbege whispered something about passion projects being done outside of class, but murphy didn’t consider him to be a rule keeper, and continued to write until the second hour of the day was up. 

he’d forgotten about the tryout yet again, even when two hands were slapped onto the table as he was packing his things away messily into his bag, more shoving them. when he looked up, the girl with the wicked facepaint was staring at him. she didn’t look mean, nor particularly inviting. more inquisitive, her eyes drawing across his entire face without seeming like she was really looking at him. he forced himself to not care as much as he could. neither of them spoke, but murphy wasn’t inclined to silence, especially when he was the one being studied like an ancient artefact. “aye aye captain,” he guessed, giving the girl a salute with a raised right hand. she smiled, just slightly.

“good guess.” she commented, and tapped her knuckles on the back of the desk. she was dressed differently than she had been when he’d first seen her, eager and confident stood on top of the desk that faced them even then. “have you got gym clothes with you? i don't think most people try out for track and field in skinny jeans.” he laughed, allowing himself to, and rubbed his palms self consciously against the sides of his thighs. he wasn’t much for embarrassment, but after his disaster of a morning, he wasn’t feeling much like himself at all. he could allow himself some niceties, in the form of a small, pretty girl with a cool style and cooler nonchalance to his annoying exterior. 

he gave her a thumbs up and patted his bag, which held a plain pair of sweatpants and a thin, cotton hoodie, embroidered with the arkadia high school logo. he may have stolen in rather than buying actual gym clothes during his second year, but the sleeves were too long and had only just started to reach his wrists rather than the tips of his fingers, so he was too accustomed to it by then. he let her lead him out of julians class, noting the distinct lack of the crazed man and his commentating, and through the fire escape he’d used that monday.   
the gym at arkadia high school was big enough, used for school wide assemblies when they needed it, the underwhelming boring school crest printed onto the floor along with their mascot animal, which was a tiger. when was a high schools mascot not a tiger? he’d always resented it a little, because what fucking school picks a tiger as their mascot without choosing orange and black as their school colours? he glared uselessly at the broad shoulders of jocks blue and silver letterman jackets as he and the captain crossed over the mismatched tiger. he knew bellamy would try to reason it, claim it was about bravery and pride, just like their mottos. he hated bellamy for a reason. 

“im emori, by the way.” the girl commented just as they came to the locker room doors. he expected her to stop outside, but she didn’t, holding the door open for him and walking straight into the boys locker room without any care in the world. there wasn’t anyone in there, but he still felt slightly strange stood next to a small girl in a sweaty smelling, humid, putrid locker room that had a few suspicious stains on the benches. he stared at her after dropping his bag onto one. “oh, right! sorry.” she turned around, but didn’t leave, and murphy supposed that was as much privacy as he was going to get.

“john murphy.” he artfully replied, unfastening the button on his jeans as hurriedly as he could. break was often used to swap into whatever designated sports kit, and he wasn’t the type who was overly confident of their body. one that was scattered in white, fine-lined scars up and down his torso. after he’d tugged on the sweatpants, he changed into the cotton hoodie as fast as he possibly could, hitting his elbow on a locker behind him in the process. the only non-converse trainers he owned had been forced into his bag, and were old, a little small and muddied from the last time he’d worn them, but he didn’t have much of an option. 

murphy felt fake, stood next to a clearly athletic girl, with his skinny, boney frame swamped in loose track clothing, and his hands worried away at the elastic of his hoodie. when emori turned around, with no warning, she took his bag from his hands and opened a locker, forcing it in beside a hockey stick, a big gym bag and a multitude of other things. he didn’t say anything, nerves eating away at him as he laboured his breaths. he considered escaping out the back door and dropping out of creative writing, but he didn’t consider himself a coward. before they could leave, emori stopped him. “look, john, i know julian cornered you into this because he does that to everyone, but you don’t have to if you really don’t feel comfortable. i can lie to him for you.” 

murphy stilled for a moment. the frontal part of his brain celebrated at the open ended escape, the ability to just leave how he’d been planning to. but a small yet overwhelming part of him wanted to do the tryout, just to prove he could. “why would you do that?” he asked, always one for deflection rather than confrontation. emori shrugged, dusky brown hair falling over her shoulders in short waves. he couldn’t read her blank expression at all, and yet he knew she held no malice toward him at all. “i can do it. i want to do it.” he corrected himself shortly, and she laughed.

the field was slightly damp at only eleven in the morning, small dewdrops trailing down each blade of grass delicately, the untouched green standing up on all ends, except for the neatly trimmed racing rings and the internal circle used for spectating during races. arkadia prided itself on their sports division, and you could tell they got the funding for it too. murphy had never really set foot on the field, other than to race across it into the lined trees behind, and hide from the world. but a part of him felt electric excitement overtake the embers in his stomach, and for once in his life, he let himself feel a mix of relaxation and giddiness. beside him, emori was grinning. “you like this, yeah? just wait until you’re running.” he let himself laugh too, genuine and filled with his delicately hidden excitement. 

the tryout blazed past. the exercises were simply, and a lot of time runs. emori asked him questions through all of it, and he felt himself answer genuinely, too elated from being allowed to run until he burned through all of his energy to care. by his third timed 300 meter sprint, murphy was positively drenched head to toe in sweat, and nearly collapsed as he slowed to a stop next to emori. she clicked the stopwatch in hand and grinned. “you’re done, john, you can collapse now.”

“oh thank god,” he groaned, letting his knees buckle and hit the cold grass. it was starting to warm, but the corner of the field they were in was shadowed by the trees behind, and he thanked a god he didn’t believe in for the cooling feeling of the blades bushing his knees. the usual embers that burned away in the pit of his stomach was undetectable. he felt different. 

“now, technically the coach should be asking questions, but he couldn’t make it for your tryout and im captain, so ive decided that you’re way more than good enough.” emori dropped a plastic water bottle next to him, and murphy scrabbled for it with slicked hands, cracking the cap open and necking as much of it as he could without choking. “did you hear me, idiot? you’re in.” he lowered the bottle, brain catching up with his ears in the slow way it did after excessive exercise. 

that was what he was slightly afraid of. forcing himself to do a tryout was easy enough, shaming himself with cowardice until he gave in and put out the fire that’d been growing for weeks. soon enough another would start, and he’d be faced with the same problem, but teams weren’t really his thing. objectively, neither was sport. he’d never shown much of an interest in it, but running put out something desperate inside of him, something that made him lash out at people and scare them away. but no, fuck no. bellamy didn’t get to affect him that much, he was allowed an output that wasn’t crushing that stupid freckled, golden face, and writing only seemed to be a place to document his anger rather than distil it. “tell me i’m not doing long distance or i’ll quit.”

emori laughed, and murphy decided that if anything, he got a new friend out of it. one that didn’t flinch away when he swore colourfully at her after a suggestion of another few hundred meters, or who bristled at his jiving insults. she laughed, or patted his shoulder, or shook her head with a small smile on her face. it felt natural walking back into the boys locker room with her. she only left when he commented that he was going to shower in one of the three cubicle showers that arkadia offered, but not until after she’d written her phone number on a slip of paper and returned his bag along with it.

his muscles burned, but his temper felt cool, even as he ran through his rollercoaster day. by the end of the day, he felt almost mellow, even as he exited the school with octavia, monty and miller with him, realising he didn’t exactly have a ride home. the walk to his apartment was at least forty minutes, and his thighs burned with exhaustion. octavia bidder goodbye to their other pair of friends and started to beeline toward bellamy’s car, only stopping when she didn’t have sarcastic comments following her. murphy was still stood behind, next to monty and miller, on the sidewalk of the building. he glanced up just as she turned, wincing at the recognition in her eyes. after so many years, they could read each other like a book. she strode back over to the sidewalk and wrapped an arm around nathan’s shoulder, a bright smile on her face. “you guys fancy a trip to barrovians?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fear every time i add anything that im ruining this fic, but it wasn't all too good in the first place. i promise this will all seem less mismatched soon, because right now it feels like i keep introducing elements without adding anything, but they will be mentioned again! i swear!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when he looked at the fire, through the flames, he saw ashen brown eyes peering at him. his vision focused on them and their beholder, who looked all but angelic in the flickering of orange light, dark background behind him, and shadows cast softly onto his face. he looked happy again, and murphy decided that was all that mattered.

barrovian cafe was a quaint place nestled away in the off-skirts of the highstreet, just on the lower side of the north, almost as in-the-middle as a place could get in arkadia. it wasn’t too overpriced, nor was it particularly cheap. it didn’t have sticky tables, but sometimes the chairs creaked a little worryingly. the staff were nice, along with the interior, and the exterior proved it to be no special cafe. and yet, it had become some what of a homeplace for murphy, octavia and their friends since sophomore year when monty had forced them all to go before exams, to study. 

by the end of the year, it was typically weekly routine to go on a monday after they’d all finished school and assorted extra curricular. since the debacle on the first monday of their junior year, they hadn’t gone yet, and murphy had been too tied up with legal issues during the summer to spare a thought about going. but nothing comforted him more than sitting down on a hard wood chair after ordering a spiced chai latte and a list of the rest of his friends orders, whilst they all settled at the table. jasper had joined them, and was excitedly talking mostly with his hands as they waited for their drinks. three visits into barrovians, monty had banned coffee for the hyperactive teenager, and they’d all enforced the tight ‘smoothies, milkshakes or low-sugar hot chocolates only’ rule. 

other than the treehouse on sanctum street, and perhaps even the track field, barrovians was where murphy felt the most at ease. most of the time they didn’t really get around to studying, but the effort was there nonetheless, buried under the books they splayed out that were soon forgotten when jasper snuck a sip of the sweet, iced caramel coffee drink that miller always ordered. they were rowdy and annoying, like any teenagers were, but the staff had grown to find them somewhat endearing after their months of appearance. that, or they were the only regulars that payed the bills beyond adventurous elderly people who never remembered to revisit. 

it was busy on a thursday, but it was nice. they didn’t feel as loud in the slightly busier atmosphere, though murphy had to dodge a few stray children when carrying the tray of drinks to their corner table. he sneered at them, in traditional john murphy nature, and didn’t even bat an eyelash when octavia scolded him. they all jumped into the last few details of their day, as if they hadn’t spent physics and lunch in tandem as a group, and then murphy, miller and monty shared spanish 2 for the last hour of the day. they rehashed told stories in detail and remembered anecdotes they’d forgotten, and it was nice. 

octavia said she had texted bellamy before ditching him at the school parking lot to join her friends in millers range rover, but by the way she was angrily typing every few minutes, he could tell she hadn’t. that, or bellamy was trying to get her to stay away from murphy too. he felt a pain in his side at the thought, and drowned it out with a sip of chai latte. “oh, yeah, i made track.” he cut octavia’s attention away from her phone when it lit up with three new texts, desperate for her to spend their first junior day at barrovians without worry. she stilled, and a proud grin grew over her face. before he could protest, her slender arms pulled him against her side as she hugged him. 

“my boy's growing up!” she cheered, and murphy swatted her away by gently hitting the side of her face. if bellamy was there, he’d probably tackle the younger boy, but murphy didn’t give a shit. he didn’t give a shit about bellamy at all, actually. he knew his best friend, and he knew she wouldn’t break at a simple tap. she hated being treated like cracked glass. his stomach stirred. “congrats, murph. im proud of you.” the way she lowered her tone so only he could hear gave a static feeling to his fingertips, and he wondered if thats what love felt like. he loved octavia with every part of him, and he let her know by not snapping back, giving a small nod and hooking his thin fingers around her wrist under the table. 

“track team?” miller whistled, lowly. for a sixteen year old, he was built. probably just taller than murphy, miller had packed out muscle that made him appear at least eighteen, and fairly intimidating when he wore that ripped beanie and dark attire. he was the closest in ideals that murphy had, normally okay with the cutting classes and getting into fights. “always thought you could run good.”

“always thought you talked bad.” murphy winked, reaching over to dip the tip of his pinky finger into the cinnamon dusting the top of millers drink, who scowled and batted the hand away. that was how they worked, both ways. miller was always familiar and comforting, not tied up in too many personal affairs of murphys life to berate him about his behaviour, nor did he have an asshole older brother. “the captain is really nice. i think you’d all like her. she’s called emori.” he rolled his eyes, forced and halfhearted, when jasper reached over to pat his shoulder like he’d won a trophy. he didn’t feel like he had. 

“murphy getting some? in this climate?” miller snickered, earning his own very hearty slap to the back of the head. the weather had only grown hotter, shining bright resplendent rays onto the shiny wood floor of the coffee shop, warming the residents of arkadia to the point where everyone was dressed in shorts and t-shirts once again. murphy pulled lightly at the hem of his sweater and sighed. he’d never been very good at dressing weather appropriate, more favoured for dark clothes, layered and hiding his thin build. 

“i don’t like women, idiot.” he retorted, masking his nerves by feigning nonchalance, sitting back into the rest of his chair and sipping at his drink, eyes calm and hands still. octavia didn’t say anything, as she knew. the reactions from their three other friends were all slightly different, but interesting nonetheless. miller seemed to process the words, like he thought murphy was joking or simply just saying it, but then shrugging. jasper reeled, straw dropping into his drink from how he gaped dramatically, tiny dots of chocolate milkshake peppering the table. monty was the most interesting reaction by far, as he did not react at all. murphy searched his friends eyes for anything, but there wasn’t even a sign of malice. he’d never been afraid to tell them, per say, with miller being very open about his sexuality, but he’d never had friends close enough to consider feeling like he had to tell them. he didn’t owe anyone anything, he just trusted them. and monty, with his neutral expression, noted that.

“monty?” he asked, forcing himself to will down the nerves. of them all, monty was the one with the kindest heart.

“oh, sorry?” the boy asked, swirling a spoon in his drink and creating a storm in the cream. “i’m glad you told us.” he was genuine, murphy knew that, his warm tone comforting like a blanket. but it was so blunt. murphy, however much he may deny it, was one for dramatics and theatre, so the niceties of acting like it wasn’t a big deal irked him somehow. he leant forward, raising his eyebrows and tapped on the table impatiently, wordlessly saying he needed more than that. monty laughed, a huff of air. “murphy, no offence, but you’ve never been all that subtle. im not blind to all of the flirting you do with bellamy, o definitely isn’t either.” 

murphys jaw dropped. he slowly thought through the one million and ten points that came to mind, emotions and words he wished to vocalise, each contrasting the last. bellamy and him, flirting? besides the age gap, it still wouldn’t work. bellamy was incredibly attractive and supposedly charming, but murphy hated his guts. really, he did. and he was octavia’s brother, which instantly put him off limits, even when he returned from a summers day of work in the hot kitchen at thirty second and stripped his shirt off as soon as he was inside, sometimes when he was still walking the street of sanctum. and maybe murphy had noticed his more than impressive figure, and his decently nice arms, but he wasn’t blind. of course he had. those arms were just attached to an irrefutable asshole who only really cared about himself. flirting worked both ways, also, and he was certain bellamy had never once liked him. 

“flirting?” he all but yelled, ignoring the smack he got from miller at the sharp raise in volume. “we- we don’t flirt! are you insane? are you going crazy, monty? did you smoke too much and start hallucinating because that has never happened and never will!” octavia was laughing, muffled behind a hand, but her whole body was shaking and she had to hold onto the table for support, tears slipping out of her eyes as she tried to catch her breath. murphy turned to her. “and you! you’re laughing, this is not funny! shouldn’t you like, have him in an off limits list? he’s your brother! not to mention i hate his guts.” they were all laughing by then, and murphys face was burning such a deep shade of red that he wanted to crawl under the table and hide. octavia was literally gasping for breaths, broken sentences claiming that she couldn’t breathe, but murphy didn’t care to help. 

through soft laughs that murphy marked as sadistic, monty spoke. “murphy, we all love you, but one time you spent half an hour arguing with him about sporks. who does that?” that prompted another round of desperate laughter, and a deeper palette of red to dust other boys face. he felt like screaming, or an ice bath. or burying himself six feet under and never telling anyone where he had gone. 

“me! i do that!” he argued back, almost childishly pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and curling them both around the glass of his cup, ducking to hide his burning face behind it. octavia wrapped an arm around one of his, leaning onto his shoulder for support as she continued to laugh. “he thinks they should be called foons. he’s a mental patient, octavia, you need to lock him up.” his best friend was catching her breath, finally, wiping stray tears from her eyes that left little black smudges of mascara on the tips of her fingers. she grinned at him, squeezing his arm as a half hug. he felt less embarrassed. 

monty was smiling sweetly at him, and murphy considered lunging over the table to grab him by the collar of his shirt, but he didn’t. it was only then that he really heard monty’s words: we all love you. his heart felt a little lighter.

friday passed in a blur of boring, droning lessons. bellamy didn’t show for their joint ap literature class during fifth period, nor did he show for the work shift they typically shared together, spent bickering and arguing.

on that saturday, octavia invited murphy over, along with their other friends. she said that bellamy was having his own friends over and that she didn’t want to seem like the loner for once. murphy had been reluctant to agree, but usually he would show at her house everyday without a warning, so denying an invitation would raise questions. 

he arrived with miller at seven in the evening after a long afternoon shift split with his least favourite coworker, facing the hot, sticky late evening of arkadia summer in jeans that were too tight for his legs to be cool, and a t-shirt which was so thin and worn that the neckline dipped down to display his collarbones to the brazen sun. it was still bright out, but the sky was a fiery orange and the roads smelt of red hot asphalt. they knocked on the door and waited on the porch, because miller had argued it was rude to just walk in, even if murphy had countered that he’d been doing it since he was twelve. they knocked anyway. 

octavia swung the door open in one sharp pull, excited and energetic, her long hair tied into a high ponytail. she was dressed similarly to millar, in shorts and a thin shirt, and she smelled faintly of fire smoke and something sweet. he thought she looked more beautiful than ever, dark eyes sparkling with genuine enthusiasm, pulling both of her friends into the back yard of the house. murphy felt queasy at the sight of the trees near the end, even as he searched for ply wood. he only blinked away at the same smell of smoke, comforting and nostalgic and stronger, and the sound of crackling kindling. other than his own friends, there were three people sat on mismatched deck chairs behind a controlled bonfire. bellamy, and his two supposed friends. their faces were lit orange from the lick of the flames and the settle of sun, but murphy could still discern their features. one blonde, long blonde hair that looked like it could trip all the boys up, and the other juxtaposing her, deep brunette and heavy set eyeliner. murphy knew clarke, he was familiar to her heartfelt attitude, but he didn’t know the other girl, who seemed content yet quiet. bellamy hadn’t looked up once since the door to the backyard had shut behind them. 

octavia chatted to them as they crossed to a small spread of blankets just the other side of the fire. she explained how bellamy had a spur of the moment idea to do something different, something fun, and had also invited the two girls wrapped close to each other. octavia, thinking the idea was great, wanted to spend it with all of her friends. murphy had wished she’d just spent it with her brother, who looked even more bronzed under dancing flames. whilst octavia retrieved the three of them a beer, murphy let his eyes settle on the older boy for a moment longer than regular. he looked tense, even through the bright smile he sent his friends as clarke monologued, and his fingertips danced across the glass of his own beer, a distracted kind of fidget. murphy thought he was safe from being caught, but the object of his observation tilted his head up and then he was staring back and murphy felt a little bit anxious he was going to start yelling or throw himself over the fire but he didn’t. he just blinked at bellamy, who looked… not angry. no, more curious. 

octavia returned with their drinks just as monty and jasper shuffled out of the back door awkwardly, bickering under their breaths. octavia was swept up in the excitement and greeted them the same way, creating a little semicircle of people on their spread of blankets after they sat down. murphy had to give it to the blakes, it was nice to just sit next to a fire accompanied by your favourite people and a beer. it made his stomach feel light and his head spacey, as if he were high. pseudo-high murphy had extreme trouble keeping his eyes of bellamy, and deciding whether he wanted to pummel him or demand he explain. or other things.

they ate defrosted meat that bellamy had cooked on the hob of the oven inside, trapped between chewy low-priced buns and smattered in their —worryingly brightly coloured— sauce of choice, and it was the best because the corners of the meat tasted like bonfire. murphy allowed himself to detect the thin wall work of the treehouse behind bellamy and his friends, a feeling that he rarely allowed himself to feel without smothering took him by the arm. nostalgia, in its warm, fuzzy, sticky sweet way, was choking him. typically, he would push it away, because what did he have to be nostalgic about? splintered porches, burning sweaters and screaming so hard his throat became raw? the pungent stench of vomit, a dead corpse that seemed to be so disappointed at him even in death, an empty house of pointless possessions? nostalgia wasn’t really his thing. but when he cleared through the fog he could feel octavia resting her head on his shoulder, and hear miller telling some exaggerated story, and bellamy, staring directly at him again.

murphy washed down the run on thoughts with the last bit of his cheap beer, and knocked his knuckles three times against octavia’s arm like they were in a wrestling match. “i need to pee.” he clarified his tapping out, ignoring the way she looked at him like he was a kicked puppy before letting him up. the sky was growing dark, he realised once he’d stepped a few feet away from the fire, dark blue spilled over sepia tones and blanketing the comfortingly warm hot air in a slight breeze. annoyed he didn’t bring a jacket, murphy wrapped his hands around his elbows and pushed the door open to get inside.

he was stopped on the porch, in the same place he had been before, all those weeks ago. bellamy blake could not leave him alone, even when murphy stared at him with dark ringed eyes and a hollow personality, tired and angry and so confused. “i thought i told you to stay away.” he didn’t sound angry, which was strange. with everything murphy knew about bellamy blake, one thing stood clear more than anything else; he was an emotional person. he cared too much for everyone around him, and was stricken with some sort of ridiculous hero complex that made monotones sound odd from his mouth. his eyes did not read as anything, and his expression was so schooled to one of zero care that murphy wondered if real bellamy was replaced with a shitty robot. instead, he shrugged, and tried to shoulder past fake robot bellamy, who grabbed his shoulders to hold him still, but not hurtfully.

“i can’t just avoid you forever. she’ll know.” murphy reasoned, trying desperately to shove bellamy with all his strength, but he barely moved, barely felt the impact. “move.”

“did you get in a fight today?” bellamy asked, once hand releasing the younger boys shoulders to tap at a blueish bruise darkening on murphys jagged jawline. he winced, the tap being less than friendly, and snapped to grab bellamy’s wrist before he had chance to move it away. desperate for some sort of reaction, murphy pressed his nails into the tan skin of the wrist, pressing them in further and further until he was sure they were bleeding but bellamy just glanced at it like the pain was just an annoyance. he wanted to scream. he dropped bellamy’s wrist instead. cerise marks in the shape of waxing gibbous curled around the wrist bone. “do you hate me, murphy?”

yes. he hated bellamy, wanted to beat him with his bare hands until their skin broke open and their blood mingled together, and he wanted to wrap his hands around bellamy’s throat until the airflow was gone. “yes. i hate you.” he didn’t add anything else, not a word, letting his own wrist be taken in bellamy’s hand. there was no harsh digging of nails into skin or iron clad grips. it was gentle. bellamy hummed an affirmation, his face blasé as ever before. “let me go.”

“can you do something for me?” bellamy’s voice was so low that it wouldn’t carry more than a few meters away, but murphy still grew anxious that someone was watching them. despite their blunt words, the situation felt less than once fuelled from only rage. the hushed whispered made him shiver just a little, and his lip curled to snarl at the ridiculous request of the person who’s skull he’d always cracked open that week. he would’ve tried to do it again, just for the insinuation he could have been muzzled so easily by a firm hand and a hushed tone. but he was curious, and bellamy was stubborn, so he shrugged and felt long fingers tighten around his wrist, but not painfully so. “please call the number on that card.”

emotion was starting to leak through bellamy blakes cool exterior, and murphy felt like he was suffocating in it. if not for their complicated week, and the demand he shouldn’t be near the older boy, murphy would consider he sounded tender. gentle. caring maybe, in a parallel universe with no dead parents and burning hatred, a parallel universe where murphy wasn’t really murphy. “i can’t. there’s nothing wrong with me.” his voice was shaky, words akin to the flip side of that sentence, the one he’d muttered by the side of the track field with his fists coated in blood. the last of bellamy’s walls crumbled, and his whole body sagged with utter despondency. 

“i know.” bellamy whispered, his body so close and his hand so firm around murphy’s wrist. he hadn’t realised his own growth, almost even to the older boys previously intimidating height, separated by a simple two or three inches. “please, murph?” murphy felt his ill-wills shatter at the familiar nickname, and he let his shoulders fall, no longer stood like a wild fox on edge of attacking. he felt furious, and he wanted to be squished in between octavia and miller again, filling his lungs with bonfire smoke and his stomach with shitty burgers. 

“whatever. but not here.” he tried to pull his wrist away, to fake his usual biting anger that would have arisen with perhaps anyone else, but the hold on it was moored. murphy couldn’t help but find a little bit of humour in their melodrama, dramatics buried under quiet voices and careful pushes. 

“now, or else you won’t do it.” bellamy pressed, and finally released murphys arm. he stepped back, and murphy realised how uncharacteristically soft he looked. sometime since sundown he’d put on an arkadia high basketball hoodie, and his curls had fallen loose on his forehead in the soft smoke and warming sun. he didn’t know if he wanted to commit the sight to memory, or tarnish it with opened skin and alarming head wounds that coated his pretty curls in red. “i know somewhere.” he turned around and walked away, down the stairs without checking if murphy was following. he wanted to ignore bellamy’s words so bad, pretend it never happened and go back to his warm space on the blanket. 

murphy felt ridiculous. he was on his own, and yet he still reeled with embarrassment. where was his usual sting? he felt the need to tear open wounds, but his control was better, laden with some sort of reasoning he didn’t understand just yet, and it angered him further. he steadied himself with hands curled around the bannisters, but his mind was already made up. wherever bellamy was going, he’d follow. 

he found the older boy on the front porch with a lit cigarette, barely smoked, that was offered out to him as soon as he left the house threshold. never one to turn down a mellowing tool, murphy took the smoke and brought it to his lips. bellamy started walking again, and with a sense of dread, murphy realised it was straight at his own home. his old home, now with a for sale sign hammered into the lawn and an unusual state of a half fixed porch. “i’m not going in there.” he called out to bellamy, who was stood on the sidewalk in front of it by then, hands buried in his pockets. he sounded angry, he realised, finally comfortable to be back in his own regular state of mind. 

“so don’t.” bellamy retorted back, his first foot stepping onto the grass. then he was out of sight, behind the side of the house, and murphy was too curious to not take quick pace steps. the gate at the side of the house was open, which meant bellamy was trespassing into the backyard of a house he’d barely ever set foot in. he wondered if the odd behaviour was drugs, because the older boy was acting so strange. he was stood next to the handmade gate at the bottom of the yard, looking back and waiting. murphy dropped the cigarette onto the yellowing grass of his old family home, the one that had been forcefully torn away from him, and crushed it with his foot. he could hear the blakes and co. a fence over. 

he didn’t expect bellamy to lead him to the treehouse. he didn’t know bellamy even knew about the treehouse, but he hauled his body up after the older teen and thought about cussing him out or pushing him like he had to octavia the day they were damned to become best friends, but when he reached the top he was struck with something akin to dread.

he hadn’t stepped foot in the treehouse since his mom died. it was the same as ever, untouched in its time since he’d visited, and crouched down on the flat floorboards of just outside. above the door was a swirl of letters he knew to read ‘do not enter’ written on the doorway, however misspelled they were. his fingers dipped into the worn grooves of the floor, and he desperately tried to labour his breaths. he phone was placed gently in front of him, with a number already typed out. his cheeks burned and he sat back on his heels, not moving to reach for the cell. his knees hurt, and he felt worn out. bellamy was sat inside of the treehouse, parallel to the doorway, with his legs criss cross and his hands on his knees. he looked ridiculous, and childish, and murphy loved it. 

“you look dumb.” he said, instead. bellamy laughed, and he felt a horrible fluttering feeling in his stomach. “what do i even say?”

“they’ll ask you questions and all you have to do is answer. don't worry.” right, yeah, don’t worry. except murphy had never truthfully been one hundred percent honest with a single person in his life and he didn’t plan to start. but he was too weak under the beating of hot summer night sun. he grabbed the cell, shuffling awkwardly into the cover of the treehouse, eyes drawing across the doodles inked to the walls and the tiny folded deck chair in one corner. he tried to sit away from bellamy, but their knees touched in the space that was a lot smaller than he remembered it being. he didn’t mind. 

the woman who picked up the phone sounded nasally and rude, asking questions as if she were an answer machine, and droning off an appointment date before the tone of end call made murphy wince and pull the phone away from his ear. he knew what he’d signed up for, really. he knew what the number meant from the beginning, and his exterior was wearing down with every instance of people seeing that there truly was something wrong with him, but every day he grew too tired to try and fight it. he would lash out and people would see his breakdown, and then the cycle would continue. when he dropped the phone to the floor of his sanctum, he felt a dusting of fingers across his knee, shy and comforting. 

“i’m sorry.” bellamy breathed, quiet enough for just them and the birds. murphy frowned, closing his eyes.

“you should be.”

“i know.” the sound of octavia and miller and clarke and everyone else was still there, just distant. it was soft, muffled, and accompanied by occasional bursts of laughter and loud fire crackling sounds. a hand wrapped around murphy’s knee, and fingertips pressed firm into his jeans. “i thought it was me. i thought you hated me, really hated me. i didn’t want you to be punished just because i annoy you. it’s always been my fault, every time we’ve really fought. but i knew you would never really avoid me even if that was true.” a fire lit within murphy, and he tried his best to subdue it, all the while his skin felt like fireflies. 

“you’re a fucking idiot.” he muttered, letting the back of his skull hit the ply wood walls that occupied his mind. they were his safe haven, his own lockbox of memories. and bellamy was sat there, within the walls, tearing them down. “i hate you.” bellamy laughed, soft and laden with some sort of nervousness that murphy knew wasn’t fear. “you couldn’t even last two days before you scrapped that idea? keeping up with you is exhausting, blake.” he was necessarily lying. within the week, his complicated relationship with bellamy had altered three times majorly. he felt as if he were in a bad teen show with crappy writers and a crappier plot. 

“i know. god, i know, i’m sorry. it just seemed like nothing was getting better and i didn’t want you to fuck your life up by getting expelled or something. which, by the way, means you need to stop picking fights in general.” murphy laughed not unkindly, and inhaled as deep as he could. the smell of bonfire reached even them, tucked away in the trees behind ply walls. he didn’t know why he was agreeing to bellamy’s requests, or not trying to claw his stupid freckled face off, and it was driving him insane. who didn’t understand their own psyche? there was no reasoning for him to agree to the call, or accept any sort of apology, and yet he was sat in the treehouse he’d sworn to never show anyone with the second blake to breach his personal rules, and he was almost smiling. the breeze was finally starting to reach his bare arms, and he dropped them to his lap in a final sigh of defat, the back of his wrist brushing fingertips that still curled around his knee. 

“we should probably go.” bellamy spoke, drawing his hand back and shuffling to stand up. he offered a hand to murphy, who’d cracked a single eye open and rolled it at the gesture. he stood on his own, turning to read the walls one last time, as the older boy made his decent down the knotted rope, things crunching in indication that he’d reached the floor. with another despondent breath, he left the only place he felt most at home. 

the bruise on his jaw was from a fight, albeit a very short lived one. it was nothing, really, some guy in his physics class who’d knocked their practical work of beakers and test tubes onto the floor, shattering them and ruining their work. murphy had been pissed, had lunged and got a single hit in, taken one, before they were pulled apart by their peers. there hadn’t been much of a repercussion, going unnoticed in the panic of broken glass. a detention wouldn’t attend. but it left his jaw aching and his hands too shaky to hold onto rope. he dropped himself the last meter or so, the cord digging painfully into his palms and relying all too much on injured hands. murphy stumbled when he landed, but an arm wrapped around his side to support him and he finally understood why he allowed the blakes some leeway.

bellamy was staring at him again, one arm wrapped securely around his waist in his reflex to hold the younger boy up, his other hand gently resting on murphys upper arm. he looked panicked, and murphy wondered why as his head swam from the relentless mix of cigarettes and beer and adrenaline. his heart was racing. “are you okay?” bellamy asked, quietly and ever caring. murphy couldn’t find his words, brain a jumbled mess of sounds and actions he didn’t feel were appropriate to respond to that question with. he just nodded, body feeling heavy and weak. bellamy laughed, but it was still riddled with anxiety. “sure you are.” 

“bellamy? murphy?” the gate at the end of the blakes backyard was cracked open, and octavia was stood just inside the premise. murphy couldn’t see far enough into the dim light to read her expression properly, but he could gather her confusion from tone alone. he raised a hand to wave, which was awkward in his chest-to-chest position with bellamy, who released his arm to lead them back over to the gate. so much for subtlety, murphy supposed, as he could see the small group of mismatched friends all peering at them with curiosity. bellamy’s arm still propped him up, but he stopped beside octavia at the gate and unwrapped it hesitantly. 

“he’s pretty drunk. i think.” three beers would not make him pretty drunk. but no, he faintly remembered the little flask of something monty had brought that tasted bitter and cheap, that he’d washed down with bellamy’s terrible faux barbecue food and san miguel. it explained the fogginess over his eyes, and his willingness to do as he was told, but he still felt bad for getting drunk at their nice little gathering. especially when he saw clarke and the other girl he had yet to learn the name of, both of whom had been left on their own in an unfamiliar house because he was having a moment. “are you okay?” bellamy asked again, and that time, murphy nodded with surety. 

they all returned to their previous spots, chatting as the sky grew dark. octavia turned out the outdoor lights at some point, which were a new addition murphy hadn’t seen yet. there was a few display ones that had spokes dug into the ground, and there were fairy lights that weaved in the barriers of the fence. it was nice, and relaxing, and murphy let himself lean his head into her shoulder when she sat beside him. when he looked at the fire, through the flames, he saw ashen brown eyes peering at him. his vision focused on them and their beholder, who looked all but angelic in the flickering of orange light, dark background behind him, and shadows cast softly onto his face. he looked happy again, and murphy decided that was all that mattered. 

none of them went home that night. montys moonshine was passed around both little groups as the alcohol wore off their awkwardness, allowing them all to chat happily as a group, and murphy felt less guilty when they all caught up to his level of drunk. even bellamy was spacey and grinning and stumbling as they started an impromptu drinking game that got them all fairly wasted. murphy learned the other girls named, lexa, and decided she was his favourite of bellamy’s unknown friends. she was quiet and calculating, a little rude, but he could read the care and love in her eyes when she looked at her friends, and clarke in particular. she and murphy grew accustomed to each other in the late night that crept to early morning.

when they all retreated inside, the time too late to return to their respective homes and their bodies lax with alcohol that made them too drunk to care, bellamy and octavia started to divide their house into a hostel for their friends. aurora was undoubtably not returning home, so clarke and lexa hesitantly accepted the offer of her room, fingers hooked together in a way that explained the soft look in lexa’s eyes. miller, monty and jasper took the living room, squabbling over the two sofas or a pile of blankets on the floor as octavia, bellamy and murphy retreated upstairs. 

murphy watched quietly as the two siblings hugged a goodnight, bellamy pressing a kiss to octavia’s head. they fought like any other brother and sister would, but murphy still knew no other relatives that cared so utterly for each other as those two. he was jealous for it sometimes, but each year that passed had him being pulled into their protective circle for one another. bellamy gave him a small wave before disappearing into his room, and octavia had to forcefully pull murphy into her room to break him from his trance. 

he crashed onto his pile of blankets that had gained a camping bedroll, burying his face into a throw pillow he’d claimed as his own. octavia laughed behind him, and he patiently waited as she changed. once she’d leapt onto the bed next to him, which was one of the ones that was just a frame on the floor for a mattress, he rolled onto his back and awkwardly shimmied out of his jeans. “how’s the dog bed?” she asked, her movements slow and inaccurate as she tried to wrestle her duvet over her. the dark brown hair that usually framed her face was pushed back, messy and untamed and splaying on her pillow like spilled milk. murphy loved her with all of his heart. 

“amazing.” he grinned. 

she laughed, rolling onto her side and holding out her hand. he was always grateful that her bed was low, he thought as she reached out her hand, pinky extended. he hooked his own through hers, letting their hands rest against her bed frame. “murphy, i need to ask you something, and i need you to not freak out.” she whispered into quiet air, despite the fact they could hear their trio of friends talking in loud yet hushed tones a floor below them. he furrowed his eyebrows and nodded slowly. he’d do anything for her. “are you in… do you like bellamy?” her tone wasn’t sad, or angry, or even disappointed. it was even with concern, and murphy tightened his finger around her own. he didn’t speak for a moment, because he didn’t know what to say. her question was so different from monty’s playful teasing, there was nothing funny about it. he couldn’t even feel embarrassed, because his mouth wouldn’t let him answer.

he tried to say no. thats what he thought, anyway. even if they reconciled, bellamy was not someone he was allowed to like in that way. not just because of octavia, or because he was the archetype of a straight male, but because it was dangerous. he’d already offered so much to bellamy mere hours after he swore he hated his guts, he couldn’t imagine how much he’d give if he loved him. “i wouldn’t mind.” octavia added, quiet and genuine. murphy swallowed, and stares at the wood of the framework distantly, just so he didn’t have to meet her eyes. he knew he seemed guilty not answering at all, but he didn’t know what to say. he couldn’t like bellamy. not even if he did feel a comfort he’d never once experienced with that hand on his knee in his favourite place on earth. not even if he could wax poetic about his face and his stupid freckles, not even if he thought that bellamy always looked good. “i want you to be happy, yknow? so it doesn’t matter to me. i think people who say their siblings are off limits are stupid cus like, then we’d be siblings in law.”

murphy laughed, looking over at her. she was grinning, and incredibly drunk. “i don’t think thats how it works. especially not when it’s not reciprocated.” he winced at his words, understanding it sounded like nothing but a confession. octavia giggled though, so he was glad he at least caused her amusement. she unlinked their pinky fingers, but only to properly take his hand and intertwine their fingers. his head was swimming, and he thought he may have been more drunk than ever before. his jaw felt slack and he didn’t feel like he really had a grasp on what he was saying. octavia was also wasted, and he trusted her more than he had trusted anyone in his lifetime. he closed his eyes, and lowered his voice to such a low whisper. “i don’t know, o. i’ve never thought about it, but he’s… he’s different. you are the only two people who have ever cared about me, and that messes you up, y’know?” he laughed, too scared to open his eyes, even though she squeezed his hand with such comfort that he knew he could. 

“i know what you’re saying, but it’s not true. millers really going for my best friend title this year, not to mention just how much jasper and monty love you. and… your dad.” he exhaled shakily, nodding into the pillow. “as for bellamy, i can’t tell you what would happen. he’s my brother, and i love him, but he’s impossible to read. i do know that there’s no harm in you liking him though.” 

murphy smiled, bringing their joined hands up to the bottom of his chin. he pressed his mouth to the back of her hand. “i know.” 

murphy did not think of the call again until the following friday. he did not think about much of anything from that night, actively trying to avoid his alone time spent with either of the blake siblings, especially his late night drunken talk with octavia. she hadn’t mentioned it either, but every time bellamy had been around them and murphy had directly looked to the floor, she would wait until he looked up and raise her eyebrows at him. it was slightly infuriating, but he supposed he didn’t have a reason to be embarrassed. its not as if she were right. 

on friday morning, murphy received a text reminding him of his appointment. he had to cut track team, being the second meet he’d actually gone to, by bribing a reluctant emori with a promise of stolen pizza from thirty second. his classes were boring, and during his ap english class he spent so long zoned and imagining the worst possible situations of the following hour that by the class end, he was being shaken by bellamy.

“did you fall asleep?” bellamy grinned, his hand remaining on murphys shoulder, who was slumped to the side with his head rested on folded arms atop the desk, hair falling in front of his eyes. he blinked, trying to regain sharp focus, and frowned at bellamy with all the might he had to resist a smile. he’d barely seen the older boy that week, but as it neared the end of september, the layers of clothes had become additional. in a hoodie and layered jacket, bellamy’s cheeks were shaded darker in the well heated room, and the tips of his ears were tinged pink. instead of offering an answer, murphy flipped him off. “how charming! come on, i’m giving you a ride.”

stretching his arms out in front of him until they clicked, murphy packed away his items and pushed himself to his feet. “i have somewhere to be. i can walk. tell octavia ill be there in an hour or two.” he grinned then, a languid smirk that fell over his words of invitation to the blake home by himself. bellamy shoved him, just lightly. 

“i know where you’re going, idiot. i’m taking you there.” the jacket he wore wasn’t much of a jacket, murphy realised upon seeing the number and name emblazoned on the back. he hadn’t asked if bellamy kept his position on the basketball team, but the letterman jacket was new, with less worn down blue and silver than before. it had three enamel pins just under the collarbone, metal and not so tacky looking. he looked like a fully fledged popular jock, other than the fact he was standing in front of the high school basket case, smiling down at murphy like he had gifted him a pot of gold. “if you’re going to be difficult, you can walk back afterward to regain your dignity.”

murphy threw his bag over his shoulder, stopping close in front of bellamy who had blocked the aisle space to leave the rows of desks. even julian wasn’t in the room, just himself and a jock who had a hand planted on each of the desks to their sides, leaning forward like he was teasing murphy. the younger of the two considered just jumping over a table and making a break for it, not feeling much up to bellamy’s pep talks or ‘its okay to get help’ mantras, but he was sure he’d be caught before he could get out. “you’re not going to let me go, are you?” they were a little too close for comfort, and bellamy only leaned closer, his smile growing somehow further, so far it could’ve split his face. 

“nope.” 

with a sigh, murphy gestured forward to the door. bellamy didn’t move for a moment, and so he rolled his eyes, shoving the older boy backward until he stumbled. “i won’t run, asshole. let's go.” they crossed through the student parking lot, which had emptied out quickly and only really remained with a few rowdy groups of teenagers in the backs of shitty pickup trucks or sat on the bonnets of cheap toyotas. octavia had an impromptu cheer practise, apparently, (murphy knew she didn’t, but he would grill her about it whenever she returned) and so they set off as quickly as possible. 

the nerves kicked in when they reached the city centre, approximately five minutes from their destinations. short, jagged nails were imbedded in murphys leg, and it took him a moment to come to and realise they were his own. he forced a shaky exhale, running through the worst had situations again. nothing could go worse than perhaps him being admitted to a psychiatric ward and be treated like a mental patient, but he didn’t think that was too far off. when they pulled into the roadside parking in front of a tall, white house that had too many signs he couldn’t read, bellamy turned in his seat and noticed the extremely pale boy beside him. “murph,” he spoke quietly, not in a whisper, his voice soft and gentle and sweet serene. “i won’t let them do anything to you. i never have before and i won’t now.”

murphy laughed miserably, and shook his head without looking at anything in particular. “i don’t need you to protect me, i can protect myself.”

bellamy hummed, and reached over to gently take murphys wrist in his hand, just to catch his attention. he didn’t let go when he had. “i think i’ve heard those words before.” his kind expression was so soft, murphy felt his heart stutter. the smile dropped, and was replaced with a serious mien replacing it smoothly. he tightened his hold on murphys wrist, just to a more firm grip that didn’t hurt, but rather felt comoforting. “i’m not trying to protect you, okay? i know you don’t need it, i know you can handle this yourself. just think of me as your backup.” 

murphy didn’t really know how to react. he wanted to declare he didn’t need that either, but bellamy’s hand was like cinder through his sleeve, solid and warm and grounding. he didn’t want to ruin that. “i’ll walk to sanctum after.” murphy muttered, but made no move to leave the car. he felt bellamy hesitate before pulling his hand back, and took that as his queue to leave, or else he’d get yet another pep talk. he closed the car door behind him, bag slung over his back, and couldn’t hold in a smile when bellamy grinned through the window, waving maniacally like an excited child. murphy noticed that the car didn’t pull away until he was right in front of the buildings doors.

it was clean inside, predictably. clinical and bright white, with marbled floors and decadent columns in the archway entrance room. he assumed it must have been a council room once, or a lobby for a rich persons old home, because the reception that had been built in looked so odd in the small ballroom-esc entranceway. he walked up slowly, feeling as if he were traipsing mud across the pristine floors, smudging grease onto the doorhandles and the desk he held to be sure he didn’t topple over. the receptionist was a smartly dressed middle aged women with awfully drawn on stick-eyebrows four shades too dark for her hair, and clumpy smudged eyeliner. she grinned up at him the same way sleazy car-sale men did, but her eyes definitely tracked the blooded marks on his fingers and his grimy, worn out clothes. “i’m sorry, sir, you have to book an appointment.” yeah, murphy wanted to hit her. hegemony be damned.

“i did, under john murphy. or maybe bellamy blake.” she looked strangely at him, but checked through a schedule on an ipad in front of her. what was wrong with the ol’ traditional pen and paper? arkadia was supplying the north side and odd spots of the city centre with such decadent items, and yet let teenagers like the blakes starve in damp houses. he saw her check a box, and put the ipad onto the counter carefully. 

“sign your name. um, with your finger. on the screen.” he narrowed his eyes at her, readjusting his bag on one shoulder and leaning down to scrawl something that vaguely resembled his name, overdoing the italics so spelling mistakes could be pinned to that if anyone asked. he noticed the way the woman casually wiped down the screen when he handed it back and pretended to not be offended. which didn’t really work, because his face read as only a sneer. “there’s a waiting room next door, you can wait for dr. griffin there.” she smiled again, tighter and a little less patient than before, but murphy did not care. he didn’t give her a thank you, or even a nod, before crossing to the waiting room.

it was small, rectangular shaped and decorated only with four sofas in two rows of two, a pair of low tables in between them, scattered magazines all over the surface. the walls had a few framed paintings, but were bare other than that. he wasn’t waiting for long, zoned out staring at a blank space of wall, before a door at the end of the room opened and his name was called. a woman was stood there, far kinder looking than the last, giving him a smile. hesitantly, he stood up and considered bolting out of the door, but he was sure bellamy would find out if he didn’t go. 

he walked over slowly, following her into a neat room that looked a lot more inviting than the others. its walls were a light beige, decorated with far more paintings and clearly hand drawn pictures along the walls. it had only a desk and different filing cabinets in terms of furniture, the desk covered with smaller framed pictures that faced inwards. there was a name plaque on the front that read abby griffin. he took a seat in the plush chair at the front, tapping his fingers on his thigh as the doctor sat down. she was still smiling.

“john murphy, right?” it’s far too casual for a doctor in a mansion of a building, but he nods nonetheless, sitting back into the chair to recollect an air of control and resistance. “you must go to school with my daughter. she’s called clarke.”

he nodded, the familiarity of the women’s face finally clicking in as recognition. he’d only met clarke a handful of times, but her and bellamy had been friends for years. “she’s good friends with bellamy, we’ve met.” doctor griffin seemed pleased at that, and opened a drawer to pull out a small, leather-bound notebook and a shiny gold-tinted pen. he didn’t like the idea of their conversation being documented, but his tactics to avoid it included vulgarity and casual talk. 

“bellamy, yes. he told me you would call, you know. about a week before you did, he told me himself. he really cares about you.” murphy didn’t want to laugh in her face, but he couldn’t hold in the snarky smirk that dared itself onto his face. a bad first impression, perhaps, but he didn’t care too much. he just wanted to get it all over with. abby tapped her pen onto the pad. “i know you’ve been struggling at school, john. i won’t force you to do anything, but i can promise you things will be better if you talk to me, or even bellamy, about what’s going on.”

“its murphy.” he retorted, simply.

abby smiled again, but it looked sadder. “you hit him, didn’t you? badly, you were both injured.” murphy wasn’t sure she was supposed to even know that, or bring up information she’d gotten from her daughters friend in a professional doctor-patient setting. he thought about how bellamy would even mention that to his friends mom, and why. he’d interrogate him later, though. 

murphy frowned, curling his fingers around the arm of the seat to attempt to cool his temper. to hell with hegemony, but he wasn’t excited for the infuriated look on bellamy’s face if he found out murphy beat a middle aged woman that was also his best friends mom until she bled. “it wasn’t like that. it was…” he trailed off, exhaling sharply to regain control, closing his eyes so he didn’t scream. the burning was back, jump starting like an engine and singeing his body. calming thoughts. octavia, miller, monty, jasper. abby hummed, prompting more words. he didn’t give them.

“you hurt your friend, murphy. is that not what happened?” hands dug tighter into the arms and he had to labour his breaths to not scream, nails painfully tight on the leathery material.

“i didn’t mean to.” he muttered, feeling faintly as if he were going to be sick. he couldn’t hit her. he wouldn’t. not yet, but he may have if she kept pushing so much.

“how can you not mean to?” abby asked, her tone still so even. “he is your friend, and i saw his injuries. they were bad. you snapped at him because he walked into you, right? and you don’t hate him, or else you wouldn’t be here. you hurt him for a reason.”

“no i didn’t!” he snapped, lurching forward as if to grab at her neck, only to stop himself with trembling legs and shaking hands. he was standing, hipbones pressed against the desk from his attempted attack. abby seemed only mildly alarmed, more of shock than genuine fear. it only made him want to hurt her more. “i didn’t mean to. i cant help it.”

“why not?”

“i dont know!’ murphy yelled again, pushing back from the desk. he didn’t really want to hurt her, if he could choose. but the burning he felt, the flames that took over his body too regularly, they engulfed him in a way that it felt like he wasn’t the one in control. “i don’t know. there’s something fucking wrong with me and one tiny thing can set me off, even if i don’t want to do it. bellamy’s not the only one, you know? i pushed my best friend off a fifteen foot tree when she was twelve, same with another person who i now live with. she’s crippled for life. you think i meant to do that? i can’t control it!” abby wasn’t writing, but she wasn’t looking at him like she was going to make an order for a straight jacket. murphy didn’t mean to spill all of that, but it was the only way he was going to get out of that room without breaking someone. he supposed a part of him worded it like that to scare her, too. he hated how his words got choppy when he was angry.

“murphy, there’s nothing wrong with you.” he laughed, kicking the chair behind him further back and grabbing his bag from where he’d set it on the floor. “wait, please. i’m saying this as a professional doctor. i know what this is.” she sounded desperate, and murphy wondered if bellamy’s stupid hero complex rubbed off on people like a virus. his teeth bared in thinly controlled rage, but he didn’t take another step toward the door. “i need you to fill out a form, but i know what this is.”

hesitantly, he dropped his bag. he didn’t sit down, but he watched as abby pulled out a sleek macbook (really? was the high grade technology more important than the apparently disposable south side lives?) and spent a short moment typing, before turning it around to face murphy. he read the form slowly, blinking at each of the words like they were in a different language. abby spoke again, “can you… are you okay with reading it?”

“fine.” he bit, roughly turning the chair and dropping his body into it, pulling the laptop closer if only in spite. the forms title read intermittent explosive disorder in big, bold letters that made it slightly easier to read than the subtext, of which he skimmed over just slightly but couldn’t decipher much of any of the words. the rest of it was simple rating score questions, and others with text boxes that taunted him. he filled it out slowly, reading each word with great care, returning to previous questions if the words only mangled together the more he read it. he filled out the answers honestly, which took a great deal of forcing himself to do. only one question stood out as jarring to him; how many aggressive impulsive episodes have you acted on within the last twelve months?

by the time he finished, he was embarrassed and so angry he wanted to burn down the entire building, but the thoughts of bellamy and octavia and raven were clear in his mind. he pushed the laptop forward when he’d finished, wincing at the red lines he saw under plenty of words. abby turned the screen to herself, not reading the document but her eyes skimming over it. she did fix on one of the questions, as her eyes didn’t move from it. “thank you, murphy. you will get a call within the next two days, and i promise things will change.” 

murphy didn’t reply. he picked up his bag from the floor and left the room without any sort of goodbye, and ignored the woman at the receptions calls for if he wanted to book another session. he rolled his eyes at that, never wanting to step foot in the building ever again. 

his body felt heavy and exhausted, far more tired than he ever felt after track meets or nights of no sleep with octavia. it was the kind of tired that made his eyes droop closed even as he was walking, limbs feeling they were close to collapsing. he couldn’t make the mere twenty minute walk to sanctum, even through the shorter route, and he couldn’t even bare the idea of attempting the forty minute distance to his own apartment. not even twenty meters from the building he had to sit on a low decorative wall, arms wrapping around his body that was starting to physically ache. he considered calling miller, too shameful to speak to bellamy at all, but the younger of them was at football practise. it seemed like the world wanting nothing but to humiliate murphy that day, he decided, taking his phone from his pocket and hitting dial on the contact. he couldn’t even move his fingers to text. “hey, bell.” he mumbled through a grin when the phone was answered in three seconds flat. “dont think you could give a guy a ride, could you?” 

he heard bellamy laugh through the line, but it didn’t make it angry the way he thought it probably should. “where to?” 

“yours.”

bellamy didn’t speak for a moment. before, there had been clanging noises like he was doing the dishes, but that stilled too. murphy imagined him with his hands in a sink of soapy water, phone between his shoulder and ear, frozen still with his eyebrows drawn close together. it was almost nice to imagine, behind shut eyes and drowsy bones. “of course. are you okay?” there was noises again, but it was a rustling and then a jingle of keys. murphy hummed into the line, slumping against a pole next to him. 

“wore me out, i think. can’t say i had fun.” murphy laughed miserably, but it came out shakier than he expected. he wasn’t going to cry on the phone to bellamy, no fucking way. the older boy was like a bloodhound for bad moods, and murphy was sure that wasn’t limited over the phone. he smiled when he heard a car door shut through the crappy crackling receiver. 

“im sorry. i shouldn’t have made you go.” bellamy sounded hurt, and genuinely concerned. it was intoxicating and far better than any drug murphy had ever tried. he smiled, even though bellamy couldn’t see it, fingers finally unfurling from the fist the’d been in since he left. his heart rate was starting to slow to a normal pace, and his head felt fuzzy. 

“its not your fault man.” 

bellamy stayed on the call until he pulled up next to murphy, who was tracing small patterns into his knee. something about the situation felt familiar to him, like he had extreme deja vu that was just out of reach, that he couldn’t quite grasp onto. he forced himself to stand and stretched out his limbs, pocketing his phone after he hung up. bellamy was looking at him through the window, not smiling or waving or anything, just watching. murphy opened the door and dropped his bag onto the floor hold, sliding into the seat and buckling up. they didn’t pull away. “are you sure you’re okay, murph?” that damned nickname did something to his heart, no matter who said it. it was like a direct affectionate way of people telling him they cared. 

“yeah, just a stressful day.” he forced a smile, rolling his head to the side of the seat so he could lean back fully and still keep his eyes on bellamy, who was still staring at him with unalloyed concern. he pulled away from the sidewalk they’d briefly parked at, and murphy let his head lull back to look at the roof of the car. he wasn’t actually tired, so he didn’t feel the need to sleep, he just felt emotionally exhausted and his bones felt like lead. 

“octavias not going to be back for an hour or two.” bellamy commented as they turned a rather sharp corner and the view outside slowly grew more and more run down, buildings with pared down paint strips and smashed windows replacing the much more grand buildings of the north. it felt comforting, like home. murphy hummed in reply; he’d been at the blake household alone, waiting for octavia, plenty of times. “i probably shouldn’t do this but… i think you might need a drink?” murphy turned his head around to face the older boy, who’s eyes were fixed on the road in front of him. responsible driver, but that didn’t mean murphy wasn’t shocked. “don’t act so surprised! i grew up in the south too, you know.”

murphy snorted, his eyes rolling lightly despite the fact he wasn’t the object of bellamy’s focus. “too busy working seven days a week and raising a child.” bellamy’s jaw dropped, and his eyes briefly narrowed on murphy as they stopped at a red light, but all he got was a cheeky grin in return. “i don’t really like cider, sorry to burst your bubble.”

bellamy grumbled. “i didn’t mean cider, you idiot. octavia’s not here, so she won’t be having any, so i’m doing my job. you’re what, like seventeen?”

murphy bit his lip, hands curling around his thighs. “pretty much.” not for another four months, but that was minor details. he was pretty sure bellamy knew that anyway.

“and i’ve seen you wasted enough as it is, so you might as well do it safely with an adult.” murphy wrinkled his nose at thinking of bellamy as an actual adult. he supposed he always had, in a role aspect, but thinking about how the boy was eighteen years old itched his brain, and he wasn’t sure why. murphy hummed again. “you don’t have to, i just felt bad for… well, all of today.” they were on sanctum street, slowing to a mere ten milers per hour, and then pulling up to the sidewalk in front of the blakes household, narrowly avoiding a pothole big enough to hurt. 

“i’m in. sounds fun.”

he followed bellamy into the house and helped him clear away the dishes he’d been interrupted doing, and then bellamy opened the fridge to produce a bottle of something cheap looking. some kind of irish whiskey cream, and a small ice cooler he’d pulled from the freezer part. he felt strange, with one hand on the counter supporting his weight, waiting by bellamy’s side as they prepared to get drunk together. morally, it was more than a little wrong. murphy was his little sisters best friend, and only sixteen, and emotionally damaged enough for two. and yet he still followed bellamy down the same route they’d taken the last time they’d both drank in the same residence. murphy was sat in the treehouse on sanctum street with bellamy, two glasses and a bottle of drink before he knew it.

it was just slightly cold out, and dark enough that murphy had to take an electric lantern up the tree with them. once at the top, they both sat against the back wall, knees knocking together. they were lined from shoulder to ankle, with a ever spacious one centimetre between. bellamy dumped ice into both of their glasses, and then poured a little too much in. he handed murphy a glass, the orange light accentuating his wide, charming smile in tinged mandarin, his glass held up close to his face. murphy knocked his own into it as a ‘cheers’ gesture, and took the first sip of the smooth, alcoholic drink. it tasted better than any shitty stolen liquor he’d had before. 

bellamy laughed at his expression, twisted in surprise and confusion and something akin to enjoyment. murphy swore at him with one finger, and took another big swig from the glass, letting his head knock back against the ply wood. the skin along his right side felt red hot from contact, and he became acutely aware of his and bellamy’s hipbones pressed side to side, packed together like perfectly fit puzzle pieces. the drink in his hand was cold, drawing his self control out to keep from doing something drastic, something he couldn’t really even predict but he could feel the want. his arms and shoulders were cold too, and he shuffled to try regain a semblance of control in his mind. bellamy looked over at him, frowning and way too close for the craving feeling of impulse in murphys stomach. “are you cold?” he swallowed, and shook his head.

the world chose then to send a gust of wind straight through the opening of the door and the gaps between the slats of wood, forcing a shiver over his body. bellamy laughed, and murphy felt his cheeks tinting as he watched the older boy take off the letterman jacket he’d been wearing all day. “take it. i’ve got a hoodie.” murphy shook his head again, pushing the jacket back with his one free hand. bellamy resisted. “murphy, ill force this on you if you don’t take it. i hauled you up here, so i won’t let you freeze.” with his last semblance of dignity, murphy slowly took the jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders, awkwardly juggling the glass in his hands to pull the sleeves over his arms. it was warm, and it smelled distinctly of bellamy. dizzying.

if he had to recall, murphy wasn’t sure how long they sat there for. long enough that the sky faded to a dark blue and the cold bit through both of their clothing, long enough that the bottle in front of them was almost empty and they were too drunk to notice that they’d huddled closer. their conversation had lulled, previously being almost entirely encompassed by little anecdotes of octavia, their main shared love. bellamy’s were familial, embarrassing like baby photos, whilst murphys were wild and stories he would probably be glared at for telling her protective older brother. he’d never felt so relaxed around bellamy in his life, even as their conversation shifted to slightly more uncomfortable family talk. they spoke briefly of aurora, and murphy’s parents.

eventually, it was so quiet that murphy could hear his breaths. bellamy spoke again, but it was low and quiet and nervous. “you know, you’re one of the strongest people i’ve ever met. if not the most.” that stunned him. he was glad he’d finished his drink and left the glass between his feet, because he was positive it would’ve been dropped and cracked at his drunken, slowed reaction. bellamy was staring at him, with big open brown eyes that were nothing but entirely sincere. murphy felt something strange twinge in his stomach, but all he could do was blink back. “you’ve lost both of your parents within three years. i mean, fuck murph, your mom died less than six months ago. and you’re powering through it all. i don’t know how you do it, but its amazing. you’re amazing.”

god, his heart was a rollercoaster. he was a mist of thousands of snow white doves, the embodiment of endearment, fluttering and swooping nervous circles in his veins. his body was weathered by hot sun, scarred from shoulder to hip along his right side, but he couldn’t pull back. his hand was shaking, and only fell purchase onto bellamy’s wrist. they were too drunk. they were dangerously so. they were two stupid teenagers sat in a treehouse they’d grown out of, making stupid mistakes. but murphy had never felt so alive. “how can you say that when you exist?” bellamy was smiling, soft and gentle, and his body had turned so his chest was facing towards murphy, his head resting sideways against the ply, their eyes locked together. “i wasn’t lying when i said you raised octavia. you did, and you’re so young. you worked every day, and you still managed to be one of the smartest people i’ve ever met. if we’re taking about strong, you take the cake.” they were both grinning ear to ear, and murphy could feel a burning hand on his knee, and he realised he’d turned to bellamy too, mirroring his position. 

murphy knew what was happening, but he couldn’t will himself to stop it. he only realised then that it was what he wanted, so badly, with every yearning part of his heart. he only realised when bellamy leant forward to kiss him, gently and shyly like he was an anxious preteen again, lips chapped and sweet with irish whiskey cream. 

he didn’t feel red hot or ice cold. he couldn’t comprehensively describe what he felt as a hand slid to the side of his face, thumb tracing slowly over his sharp cheekbone, the touch so gentle that it felt like butterfly wings. the only part of him that felt temperate was his heart, boiling molten and shining blindingly bright in shades of topaz. his hands were trembling as he brought them to the back of bellamy’s neck, warm with wisps of those endearing dark curls at the nape, and brought him only closer. he was sure he couldn’t breathe, until he inhaled sharply at the feeling of a tongue on his bottom lip. 

murphy had made out with plenty of people, but none as stunning as bellamy. and still, he pretended to not be nervous as he opened his mouth willingly, sharp shivers running down his spine. bellamy seemed to notice, but he didn’t disconnect their lips even as he physically shifted murphys body until he was in his lap, long arms wrapped around his side as they wrapped around his waist, which did work in warming him up just a little. murphy felt desperate and young and infatuated with umber curls and cautious touches and the biggest heart to ever exist. he thought that he may have been crying, cheeks feeling damp as his face met bellamy’s in languid movements. 

“murphy? are you up there?” the moment was ended as soon as octavia yelled through the serene atmosphere inside the ply wood walls. murphy fell back from bellamy’s lap, and he wasn’t sure if he had jumped of been roughly pushed away. they paused, and bellamy couldn’t reach his eyes. it hurt. 

“yeah, hang on, i’ll come down.” murphy knew he sounded upset. he didn’t care, because he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy.... dont hurt me?
> 
> (p.s. if you picked up on the overuse of 'gentle' synonyms during the kiss and the fact that they're in the treehouse, hopefully you related it to the main fic summary. if you did, i love you, can we kiss please)
> 
> (p.p.s i just realised this is the longest fic ive ever written. tonight i will celebrate with vodka)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> us history was not as interesting as his early morning.

murphy didn’t talk to bellamy for a month.

he didn’t mind, really. coming up on halloween, which was a huge day for his little group of rag tag misfits, he didn’t particularly have the time. he busied himself with track, working, getting high with his friends. all of the important anecdotes of teenage-hood. if him and bellamy shared a shift, he would pretend he was caught up in something. he had felt the stare on his back almost constantly, and the few times he had to meet eyes with bellamy, the older boy looked sad.

murphy didn’t really give a shit. it wasn’t bellamy’s dignity that had been completely splintered and torn apart all within a single month; he wasn’t allowed to be sad. he had briefly wondered if he’d acted too harshly, misread the situation and overthought it. maybe bellamy hadn’t meant to push him, maybe it was a reaction. that was believable, except for the fact that bellamy hadn’t really made a single attempt to actually talk to murphy, who’s avoiding and ignoring only went as far as working a little too independently at thirty second and forcing octavia to only hang out with him in her room. he couldn’t bare to face the treehouse.

bellamy had thrown him in a sea of changing opinions and murphy was sick of it. he was sick of trying to work out whether the older boy hated him or not, and he was over compromising his friendship with octavia. she was plenty more important, even if he couldn’t get the phantom feeling of bellamy’s lips, chapped and warm and intoxicating, firmly out of his mind. bygones. 

octavia had picked up on it, but she had yet to comment. murphy wasn’t sure if she’d maybe asked bellamy and he’d come up with some bullshit excuse, because neither of them were telling the truth any time soon. he felt bad for keeping it from her, and he’d feel bad if it came to having to lie, but he didn’t want her to know. even with drunken blessings whispered over hand holding, best friends brothers were decidedly off limits, so they stuck to her room, or rarely the lounge when murphy knew bellamy had a shift. which regularly happened, as he’d been avidly checking the on-paper rota and secretly swapping around their names when no one was looking. 

there had been two shifts where it was just them. he hadn’t realised, before, or else he would’ve scribbled out his name and swapped it for someone else on the rota, even if someone was definitely going to notice and fire him soon. he had shown up, seen only bellamy, and taken to the kitchen without a single consideration. he put headphones in, and come the friday night rush, he would avert his eyes to the floor every time bellamy walked past and looked like he was going to ask for something. if they did speak, if they had to, he would reply in snappy sentences and single words. at the end of the shift, he left without helping clean up the way they typically would, and he didn’t care. 

bellamy didn’t complain. 

for their shared ap class, it was easy. he sat at the back and took notes, staring straight past the back of bellamy’s head just a few rows in front of himself. julian had noticed, but he didn’t press like usual, at the distinct lack of bruises on the both of them. and when murphy handed in his perspective project for julian’s creative writing elective class, the old teacher didn’t comment that the main character was a b-named hero complex type, with a fierce love for his sister and himself and no one else. it was meticulously edited and rehashed and edited again, and murphy was proud of it. he liked delving into fake-bellamy’s head and tearing him apart, making himself feel better in the real world.

emori had shortly become a good friend of his. murphy really liked her —he imagined her being the only girl that could possibly capture his heart, had he been born straight— and they spent the majority of their track team meets competitively racing when she wasn’t overwrought with captain duties. they often ran together for fun, too. with their first proper out of state race just a week away, murphy had been pushing himself, and using the burning and feeling of cold, looming fall wind whipping his face to remove any straying thought of dark hair and sun-kissed freckles. 

it was mid october, and it was cold. the track field had frosted over to white-tipped blades, and the sloping black roof of the ugly arkadia high building had a constant icy sheen over it. arkadia as a city was filled with evergreens that mixed with the mist and fog to form the perfect thriller movie setting, and the temperature was always sure to leave stinging, pin prick feelings along thinly covered skin. 

a month after the incident in the treehouse, murphy had woken up with aching legs but a burning in the pit of his stomach. mbege and raven had both left, which meant he had to walk to school for the first time since he’d stopped driving with the blakes. he hadn’t been very happy when he peered out of the apartment window to check the whether, and noticed the usual fog much thicker than before, the icy sheen turning to freeze puddles and dangerously glaze the sidewalks. it looked freezing outside, and he’d woken up early after a late night. he felt miserable. 

with a grumble, murphy stretched his limbs out and counted the days on his hands until the track race at the twin school a city over. it was too close, he hadn’t been training long enough yet. he was fast, unbelievably so, and easily beat mostly all of the track team within just a few days of running with them, but they were mostly all younger than him, shorter and undertrained. he’d technically been running his whole life.

resigning himself to the idea of getting in just a little bit of time at the treadmill or on the track before his us history class, murphy hurriedly shoved his sports-appropriate wear into a prideful arkadia high track team bag, finding a strangely comforting feeling at the dig the hard strap made into his shoulder as he braved the cold walk all the way to the high school in central, fingerless gloves futilely covered by hoodie and jacket sleeves, chattering teeth proving even that wasn’t enough. cold weather was more welcomed in arkadia, as summer only lasted three months, stretching to maybe four with light heat and midnight breezes. 

the field was empty when murphy reached the school, nothing the usual early-goers at their regular places, whether that be the open plan common rooms, the benches out the front, the open doors of art rooms, or anywhere their hobbies saw fit. for him, that was the track field. 

the grass crunched under his feet. a bit of a masochist, murphy had decided shorts were good enough for winter running gear, and the cold stung so harshly at his skin that it reddened before he’d even been outside for five minutes. he looked out over the school, over the student parking lot that had gained a few more cars still grumbling with ignition to warm the teenagers inside, and over the large glass window of the staff room where rich middle class adults pondered how to extra-torture their students in the coming hours. murphy sighed at the lot of them, and then he ran.

running didn’t provide a head full of distractions for him. it was distracting in itself, only so far as it tore any sort of coherent thought from his mind and let him settle in a bliss of rushing cold air, a burn in his calves that only felt satisfying, feet hitting the floor and rolling to propel him further. he could close his eyes and allow his brain to not think, only feel. cool, burn, pat-pat-pat. it was like meditation, his heart beat thrumming with his rapid footsteps, a rare but genuine smile forcing its way onto his stubborn face as he curled around for his third lap of the field. 

when the faint sounds of cars grew heavier, and he could see the parking lot starting to fill more rapidly, he slowed himself to a stop and let his breath catch up, curling into cool clouds in front of his eyes. he wasn’t cold, but he knew he would be if he didn’t leave soon. humming to himself as he ritually performed his usual post run stretches, murphy located a volkswagen polo he knew all to well parked in the lot, and decided that was enough for him. resigned, tired and dreading his upcoming classes a little more, he numbly crossed the field to the gyms side entrance, threw it open and basked in the warm air of the inside. 

a few meathead jocks were already doing that bro thing of making uncomfortably homoerotic hinting jokes and lazily dribbling a basketball, so he kept to the far left of the big, echoing gymnasium with his head down, trying not to laugh as the archetype idiots practically flirted with each other. he reached the changing room without being spotted, which was good for his dignity, and then immediately shoulder-checked someone as soon as he turned the corner around a row of lockers. if not for the offending person firmly holding him by the upper arm and his thin waist, he probably would’ve fallen over. and he probably would’ve cracked his head open, knowing his luck.

dishevelled and sweaty and embarrassed, murphy curled his features into a scowl rather than an apologetic expression, and lifted his eyes to look at the face of the sorry loser he was about to berate. except it wasn’t any sorry loser, it was bellamy. who he was trying to actively ignore, avoid, and all around pretend didn’t exist, because he wasn’t sure he could even force himself to stick to his usual mean persona if bellamy tried to pry anything out of him. thats why the looming threat meant for a stranger died on his tongue, leaving a scorched mark and a tremble that quickly reached his hands. 

bellamy was completely topless. as in bare chested under flickering shitty changing room lights, gym shorts with a stupid tiger emblazoned on one thigh, seemingly low on his hips. as in distracting and painfully mouth watering and god, murphy wasn’t sure how it had taken him so long to realise just how attracted to bellamy he really was. they weren’t far apart in height at all, as they had been for all their prior years, but with a chest like that murphy felt skinny and small in comparison. not that he minded, for once, a warm hand secured on his arm and his waist like he would still topple over if bellamy let go, fingers curled entirely on the slim expanse of his side. he wanted to scream. the pressure was searing. 

“murphy,” bellamy said, but it came out as a whisper barely audible, his eyes wide and observant, raking up the length of the younger boys body, much like how murphy was trying so desperately hard not to mirror. it was strange, the tension serrated and cutting, but not interrupted by the loud squeaking of sneakers on gym floors, or the hard breaths leaving bellamy’s mouth as if he’d ran a marathon. how easily their last moment had been shattered, and how strong the current one seemed to be. murphy wanted to kiss him, he wanted to bite him and make him bleed. he wanted to slam bellamy’s head against the lockers and chase his lips like an addict. he couldn’t breathe, watching dark eyes follow the tongue that darted across his lips. he knew what he was doing, and he was loving it. 

he wasn’t sure how long they stood in silence, unmoving even when someone passed the door, unflinching despite the close voices outside. he tilted his head down, just slightly, slow enough that it wasn’t noticeable but just to the right degree that when he looked up to bellamy’s eyes, he was watching through his eyelashes. john murphy did not do many things successfully, but teasing and flirting and leading poor innocent souls directly into his blatant trap was one thing he excelled at. not even strong hearted, smart headed bellamy could break through, he learned, as his back was slammed hard enough against the lockers for it to discolour and his mouth was caught in a fierce kiss sure enough to bruise, his arm freed from bellamy’s grip so the boy could use the free hand to bracket murphy in. 

there was no taste of sweet cream whiskey on bellamy’s tongue, he was gasoline and lit matches and the smell of bonfire smoke. he was the caress of a blistering pyre, unforgiving and searing on soft skin without knowing. he burned, and murphy melted. 

blunt teeth bit at murphys lips, which only made him grin wide and sadistic, pushing back just as hard, sinking his own teeth into a warm mouth. the noise bellamy made was short of primal, low in his throat and intoxicatingly hot. murphy laughed against him, lurching his body forward as much as he could, only to regret it when one of his hands was caught and slammed beside his head, arm twisted uncomfortably, his shoulder blades taking another hit of hard, cold metal. he vaguely thought he could taste blood, but the thought evaporated when the aching kissing stopped so bellamy could trail his teeth down to murphys neck, who hissed at the feeling of canines sharp on his pulse, arching his body. “i hate you.” he hissed venomously, fingers twitching from where they’d been scratching purposefully at bellamy’s shirtless back, leaving behind pink stripes. his arm hurt, and his back felt bruised, but bellamy’s cutting mouth was just above his collarbone and he vaguely thought it was the best thing he’d ever felt, sure that it would bloom darker than even the marks along his shoulders and knuckles, darker than any bruise he’d ever had.

murphy wasn’t one to be loud in a place of public, but the low, drawn moan that echoed around the changing room was surely his own, even if he couldn’t remember letting it out. the teeth at the dip of his collar bared into a wide grin, securing around the bone as a tongue dipped out to lap over the developing mark. murphy wanted to elbow him so hard in the ribs that he’d be trying to catch his breath through those same teeth, but all he could do was roll his neck back and slam his head against the lockers, hard enough that the dizzying feeling over his mind furthered, eyes screwed shut. there were featherlight fingertips trailing from his waist, up and across his smooth stomach pulled tight in tension, across each and every dip between his ribs, fingers slotting into the grooves like puzzle pieces. his own hand, that had been released from the vice grip and awkward twist, was wrapped so tight in bellamy’s hair that it must have ached, and he could feel raised skin of scratches when his other hand drew across bellamy’s bare back. the realisation of what was happening set in, but murphy couldn’t bring himself to care. he’d feel guilty later, because the feeling of bellamy’s mouth trailing back up to his own, and the secure arm completely around his back was too good to give up.

us history was not as interesting as his early morning.

that was a dull ache at his collarbone for the rest of the day, and every time he thought about it, his fingers felt fiery, like they could set the world on fire with a single touch. the only thing dampening it was the droning voice of his various teachers, and the droning voices of bored teenagers. it was far too early to think about wildfires from his hands.

third period physics, he couldn’t quite meet octavia’s eyes. he didn’t feel particularly guilty, and he knew he had her blessing, albeit a drunken one. it just felt strange, looking into eyes that so similarly matched bellamy’s, the same devilish eyes that had stared him down for a minute before he was slammed into a locker and aggressively kissed. he resolved to pretending to be all too tired to keep his eyes open at all, practically leaning on miller next to him as his brain replayed those moments over and over and over until the bell rang, and he quickly left the room. lunch, and then pre-calc with jasper. both were easy to pass without questions.

it was monday, which meant studying at barrovians. that was their schedule, every monday, without fail. it was especially important in october so they could meticulously plan their creative outfits and anticipated events of the thirty-first. apparently, that year, they were all going to a party. octavia had roped them into it, alongside miller. jasper was never hard to convince, and monty usually followed jasper. and, well, murphy wasn’t spending halloween alone, even if he hated high schooler parties. booze were booze.

“murphy.” a finger jabbed into his ribs, but it was far less marring than the hand that had been at his side that morning. he jumped in his eat, hands moving to quickly stop the precarious shaking of his full mug in front of him. it was monty, so he wouldn’t yell, because yelling at monty was like kicking a puppy. even he was against that; there was just no reason for it. “what are you wearing for the halloween party?” monty knocked his shoulder into murphys, who could recognise something in his eyes. understanding, maybe, that something had happened to make him so distant, knowing he wasn’t really ‘just tired from track’.

he shrugged, swirling his pinky finger around in the beige coloured drink before him. “i haven’t really thought about it. with the race coming up, i don’t know… halloween feels more distant this year.” that wasn’t really why, but none of them pushed it. none of them ever pushed him anymore, and he wasn’t sure he really liked that. he wasn’t going to crack if they used just a little force, he wasn’t delicate china plate skulls. he wouldn’t break under pressure, because he was stronger than that. his distraction came in the form of three buzzes in a row.

[ugly blake dont reply]  
murphy  
we should probably talk  
why haven’t you accepted any of the calls from doctor griffin?

he winced at the shift in messages. it was true, he hadn’t accepted a single call from any unrecognisable number for weeks, purposefully. he didn’t want to be psychoanalysed, and he’d only filled at the form at the insinuation that he was seventeen and couldn’t read. which wasn’t totally untrue, but that didn’t mean he wanted people to actively know. especially not nosy shrinks that were too upper lass for his grubby fingers and snarky attitude. and yes, he knew bellamy wouldn’t be happy, but they were exactly on speaking terms for almost all of the time since. he could make his own decisions anyway. resolute, he locked the phone, only to roll his eyes when the screen lit up a few seconds later.

[ugly blake dont reply]  
i know you can see these, asshole

murphy grinned because he really couldn’t help it, the same way he couldn’t help how his fingers twitched to reply. he didn’t like the stupidly built, annoyingly pretty-faced asshole in any sort of romantic way, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that after their two separate make-out sessions that he didn’t slightly strive for bellamy’s attention when he was around. apparently that extended to texting, because he couldn’t even force himself to ignore it.

[murphy]  
im not a kid  
i can do what i want

[ugly blake dont reply]  
oh really?  
not if i say so

a shaky exhale really displayed his rattled composure to his friends, as he noted each and every one of their curious looks hidden behind glances, all communicating in expressions and eyes. he rolled his own at them, and placed the phone face down onto the table. if he couldn’t read the messages, they’d be easier to ignore, right? “you’re all so nosy.” he stated simply, looping his fingers around the handle of his mug to lift it to his lips, glancing at all of their reactions over the top of the rim. octavia was laughing behind her hand, never one to be embarrassed even when caught red handed. jasper was mostly the same, though his was more lack of awareness. monty looked a little embarrassed, and miller only seemed to be more enthused as his hand darted to the phone when it buzzed, snatching it up before murphy could.

hissing at the feeling of hot coffee sloshing over his fingers when he slammed his mug down, murphy dripped the spills onto millers lap as he lunged at the boy, grabbing his phone before he could lay his eyes on whatever the text was, or even the contact name. tucking the phone into the waist band of his jeans, just under his shirt and too close to his crotch that anyone except maybe octavia daren’t go near, he gave a sharp glare to the thief, who’d joined in with the laughter. “got yourself a secret boyfriend, murph?” octavia grinned, knocking her ankle into his under the table. they were directly opposite each other. his heart burned for a moment.

“definitely not.” he wrapped both hands around his mug and pressed his foot against hers, grounding. her smile seemed more warming, and the guilt finally started to wrap around his heart, strangling. “dog bed tonight please?”

she laughed again, throwing her hair back over her shoulders, and murphys entire body felt like it had been weathered for months. he hated himself, and the heavy feeling of his phone, the need to reply. “on a week day? bell won’t be happy.” she wasn’t wrong; since the apartment, bellamy had been less lenient with him staying over on week nights. it was still a regular, but with no neglectful, abuse mother to shield a small boy from, the older boy didn’t see the point. companionship wasn’t something he knew well, apparently. 

“bell can suck my dick.” well, fuck. definitely not an appropriate choice of words.

octavia grimaced, but her face was bright. even if he searched her face for any indicator of which part of the expression was more real, less joking, he couldn’t. he wanted to gage a reaction, but apparently he was still in the dark. all he had to go off was the general rule of hey, maybe don’t kiss your best friends eighteen year old brother. the dog bed seemed less inviting then, if bellamy was under the same roof with his stupidly sculpted abs and his straining arms, but the blake-attention-seeker part of murphy won him over, so he laughed. there was no going back.

“back to the party.” octavia leaned forward, onto her elbows, her face blank as thoughts processed in her mind. murphy knew how she worked. “i invited lexa and clarke. you know, the ones from the bonfire?”

jasper looked confused, fidgeting hands coming to a stop from where he played gently with the threads of monty’s sleeve, who seemed perfectly happy. murphy narrowed his eyes at them. “doesn’t that mean bellamy will come? is that a good idea? i mean, he’s great and all, but he’s also your older brother. and you’re only sixteen. and he’s, well, probably the most over protective sibling i’ve ever seen anyone have ever. like, ever ever.” jasper was right, for once. bellamy was blatantly over protective, that was a fact, and accidentally inviting him to a high school halloween party in the woods was probably not a good idea. not only for an inevitably drunk octavia, but for a drunk murphy too. he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from jumping bellamy if they were both buzzed, hidden in the thick brush of trees. 

“maybe we can just avoid him.” murphy shrugged, averting his eyes to the table so his best friend didn’t have the opportunity to read him through the gateway to the soul. “doesn’t seem fair to just like, not let him come.”

“since when did you care about fair?” miller nudged him, but all murphy could muster up was a half hearted laugh, rather than his typical jab of sharp, insulting wit. he knew it was all suspicious, and the slight silence awaiting his answer was choking.

he shrugged. “i hate blake more than anyone at this table.” another gentle kick to octavia’s foot. “not you, obviously. i just don’t think we should deprive a senior repeat of drinks, i cant imagine he’s popular enough to have many other options this year.” that seemed to be good enough, because they all made various noises of agreement. he knew that the repeat hadn’t affected bellamy’s reputation at all, other than maybe dropping a few people in friends that couldn’t be easily replaced with his brazen, extroverted personality. 

he dutifully noted the distinct lack of a single textbook or studying guide. it was always like that come october, even for monty. it was nice, in a laid back, relaxed kind of way even if they were all aware they definitely shouldn’t cease their studying in their busiest, arguably most important year of high school. it was just one month, they would survive. they’d survived a whole lot more.

“i have costume ideas for you.” octavia pointed at him with her pinky finger, his face pulled into a mischievous grin that made his heart feel happy, even if he schooled himself to look slightly horrified. she only grinned more.

bellamy was at the house already, once they’d returned from a brisk walk all the way back to sanctum street. murphy wasn’t sure how to tell octavia that once again they’d resolved their weird, teenage boy, hormonal angst, so he didn’t. the lights in the lounge were already on when they returned, which meant he wasn’t busy and he wasn’t in his room. it made murphys skin burn and his heart rate beat momentously faster. always the nerves on sanctum street, no matter the weather. octavia didn’t seem to notice, and shoved the front door open without breaking her spiel of conspiracy on monty and jaspers lingering touches.

“maybe they finally figured it out.” murphy spoke a little loud, maybe for bellamy’s sake. “i think jasper’s been pining for years.” 

octavia laughed loudly, shuffling around him to lock the front door. it was six in the evening, meaning none of them would leave again. “monty is also oblivious, so i don’t know how likely that is. its kinda sweet though, right?” she kicked off her shoes, and murphy followed, haphazardly knocking them against the wall, whilst octavia nudged them to neatly sit together. opposites attract, he supposed. “hey bell.”

“hey o, how was school?” bellamy was on the sofa, in just a faded blue hoodie and dark gym shorts, and murphy vaguely wanted to scream or join him. instead, he just hid behind octavia like they were twelve again. “hey murph.” he bit his tongue at that, and nodded his head awkwardly. as if that was a normal response, ever. octavia looked at him briefly over her shoulder, confused and curious and definitely going to pry later, when he was curled up on his dog bed.

“hey, bellend.” he added, desperate to hold on to any semblance of his usual attitude so his best friend couldn’t read him as easily as usually and somehow figure out he’d aggressively made out with her brother in the school locker room after half a minute of extremely tense silence and staring. that probably wouldn’t go over too well, so he resigned himself to following her into the small kitchen as she yelled back to bellamy about the boring events that had taken place in their day. it was always like that, octavia explaining anecdotes that murphy had been by her side for, doting in his own little comments that normally earned an eye roll. he didn’t feel quite brave enough for that, though, unpacking the plastic packet of cheap mozzarella sticks, keeping his eyes firmly on the oven as he heard bellamy stand up to follow them in. as he moved to place the tray of food in, his hand caught the grid and he flinched, forcing the tray in and pulling his hand back against his chest. half a second later, a hand was on his arm and pulling him to a stand.

“shit, im sorry, i should’ve warned you it was still hot.” bellamy frowned, turning the younger boys hand over in his own. there was a bright, flaming red mark forming, and he lead murphy to the tap, where he held it under cold water. “o, can you grab the first aid box from under the stairs?” murphy heard her scuttle off, and braved himself to finally look bellamy in the eyes. he was genuinely focused on keeping the burn cooled, but that didn’t mean murphy couldn’t use his distracted behaviour to watch him, stare at his focused eyes and his worried expression and his mouth. 

“i can do this myself.” he mumbled, breaking his gaze away from bellamy’s face and lightly shoving the older boy, who refused to let go of his wrist and shoved him back.

bellamy’s voice dropped low, not the tone of a whisper, but barely audible. “but then i’d have no excuse to hold you.”. for emphasis, he slowly snaked an arm around murphys lower waist, keeping his other hand on the boys wrist to hold it under the cold stream of water that was dulling the horrible, sticky hot pain on the back of murphys injured hand. he shivered at the words, flinching away fully when he heard octavia’s footsteps in the lounge. bellamy dropped his wrist, but it was only after she had returned to the kitchen. 

bellamy made him apply some strange burn cream, and then tried to hide the burn under gauze even past murphy’s blatant refusal. “i’ll leave you two to bicker.” octavia laughed, stretching her arms above her head and walking through to the lounge as the boys wrestled over a crinkling gauze packet, one of them desperate to help the other, who was more interested in binning it purely so it was unusable. as soon as octavia’s footsteps were retreating up the stairs to her room, bellamy stepped a little closer and seized murphy’s arm by the elbow. it felt like he was doing that a lot, being all forceful and demanding. 

“do not go all alpha male on me, i will step on your toes.” murphy frowned, pulling the packet closer towards himself and desperately scrabbling at the edges with both hands, whilst bellamy effortlessly held onto it in just one. 

“you weigh like, seven stone. it wouldn’t even hurt.” bellamy squared his shoulders, and he was definitely leaning forward onto the front arch of his feet because he almost towered over murphy, despite their similar height. he wore a proud smirk, and murphy wanted to wipe it from his face. instead, he elbowed the boy and grinned at the guffaw he made, then held tight onto the packet, standing on bellamy’s feet with his own, bringing their chests close together. the tight hold on the gauze was loosening, and if he just — murphy leant closer still, a wide, smug grin gracing his own face, tilting his head up just slightly to look at bellamy in the eyes, mere inches between them. he wriggled it, just slightly, and tried to take it completely. bellamy tightened his grip. “distraction? really? thats cheating?”

murphy smiled more, pulling his lip back into his teeth and not breaking eye contact for even a second. his heart was hammering and his hand hurt so goddamn bad, but he was a little preoccupied to care. “or smart thinking, blake. not my fault i do it better.” he felt a bit like a child, stood on bellamy’s feet, having to clutch his arm so he didn’t fall backwards. his cheeks tinted a little, and only warmed more when bellamy laughed, so genuine and joyful that murphy was the one who ended up distracted. gently, as if he were scared to break the moment, the older boy pushed him back with a hand against his chest, and pulled the gauze packet away. 

he looked so genuinely happy, and it stunned murphy. he’d seen bellamy happy plenty of times, it wasn’t like he was miserable. but their recent developments changed things, and all he could think about was how oddly stunning he looked, and, oh god, how close he was getting. murphy was sure he’d faint. he didn’t even argue when bellamy took his hand again, and ever so gently wrapped unpackaged gauze around the harsh, adhesive burn. murphy watched him silently, giving in. the same warm fingers that had slid along his ribs were carefully using medical tape to secure the material, being sure not to touch the area of burn, holding his arm even in the uninjured places with such caution that murphy wasn’t sure when he’d ever felt so cared for, physically.

when he was finished, bellamy smiled at him. murphy couldn’t shift his stunned expression, even though he wanted to scream. bellamy blake did things to him that he hated. he never felt so weak, or so vulnerable, like he did around bellamy, but for a reason he couldn’t place. he couldn’t fake his usual persona. there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. the smile on bellamy’s face faltered a little, and he stepped back a few inches. “your food is probably ready, now.” 

when murphy didn’t move, too stunned and silenced and staring directly at bellamys face, the older boy smiled with an edge of humour and retrieved the tray himself. a bowl of mozzarella sticks were shoved into his hand, uninjured. bellamy was grinning, chewing on a stick he’d stolen, looking content and something almost like smug. murphy was still so baffled by him. “thanks.” he managed to mumble, face heating up more when he realised how shy he sounded. john murphy did not do shy. he was abrasive and vulgar and unapologetic, he did not get shy when a pretty boy showed decency toward him. he was not so easy. 

“you okay murph?” the older boy asked, tentative and careful in the bellamy type of way. his voice was like rich coffee, addictive and strong.

murphy shrugged, finally forcing himself to break out of the trance, and lifted the bowl just slightly. “thanks. again. bye.” turning on his heel to follow octavia upstairs, he winced at his words, and felt the tips of his ears tint a dark read when amused laughter travelled across the house, originating from the kitchen. he was still recovering when he reached octavia, who flipped over from lying on her stomach to make grabby hands at the bowl. suddenly not very hungry, he handed the whole bowl over and sat down on his dog bed, pulling his legs underneath himself. octavia ate happily for a minute or so, until she noted his absolute silence, and raised an eyebrow at him. 

“you okay?” she mirrored her brother, and it only made his face heat up again. the reminder made him hone into the sounds downstairs; someone humming whilst rattling around in the kitchen, soft feet padding from there to the back door. he thought of the bonfire and the treehouse and promises that weren’t really kept. he shrugged at octavia, and dove a hand in for a mozzarella stick, using the distraction as an advantage to steal food from her. she didn’t even flinch, because she was his best friend. he sometimes forgot people tolerated him. 

she kept staring at him. “your brother is weird.” he commented simply, hoping that would be enough for her to avert her eyes from him. she could read him like a book, so much so that he never really had a choice in it. most of the time he didn’t care too much, because he was normally just being pedantic and stubborn. but he cared then. he cared about not letting her find out about any of it; to her knowledge, him and bellamy fought a lot and sometimes reconciled, but only for octavia’s sake. thats what he wanted her to think forever. it had always been more complicated than that though, and the more recent developments were only making it harder for him to hide form her. he felt awful, but he loved her, and any fantasy about bellamy that wouldn’t even happen didn’t even come close to the importance of her friendship. 

she laughed, nodding her head to the side, satisfied enough with the answer but not enough to drop it completely. “yeah, weird enough that you get all blushy and red around him.” she mocked, looking down at her food to avoid the utterly shocked look on murphys face. it was so much harder for him not to tell the truth when she and their other friends kept joking like that. because they were joking. even monty, who seemed stone cold serious about it, would probably drop dead in shock if he found out they aggressively kissed in a locker room. they joked about it to tease him, but it wasn’t actually plausible. octavia was laughing again. “you should’ve seen your face earlier, when he was holding your arm! i dont think ive ever seen you so embarrassed in your life, and i remember that one time in seventh grade when you dropped your entire tray of food onto the princi-“

“okay! okay, i get it.” murphy shoved her, his tone bitter but lighthearted deep down. she knew if he was ever actually upset. light teasing of course didn’t do that, he had thick skin. “reliving my childhood trauma.” he grumbled, pretending as if both his parents weren’t dead by the time he turned sixteen. 

she was cackling then, though, and watching her laugh so hard that there were tears in the corners of her eyes made his heart feel light. it was like that a lot recently; teasing murphy until everyone was cry laughing. in another life, he probably would’ve genuinely physically hurt them all for it, but he’d grown accustomed to backfiring some how. and yet, whenever it came to him and bellamy, he had nothing to say except some thinly veiled threats. “seriously though, you should’ve seen it. you looked like a tomato.” she forced the bowl into his hands without asking if he was hungry. he took it, but made no move to eat. his mind was a little elsewhere anyway. “i cant believe my best friend swoons over my brother.” she giggled again, and his face only flared up more.

“shut up, blake, i do not.” he rolled his eyes, though she didn’t seem to listen to him at all. he pressed further. “he’s not really my type. too… tall, too muscular. and his need to help everyone is really annoying, so i could never deal with that either. also he works too much, no time for anything. he wouldn’t make a very good boyfriend, would he?” he definitely realised the hole he was digging himself into, because octavia knew his limited past wheel of interests, none all to romantic, and most of them fit the bill. tall definitely, though they had gotten more even height to his own over time. muscular always, some closet case basketball players that hooked up with him at parties when he was bored and lonely. the other points weren’t really explored in his escapades, as none of them were even vaguely romantic, but octavia knew him too well. she saw how soft he got whenever there was a rare moment of gentleness between himself and bellamy. and she knew he valued bellamy’s care for her. regardless of what bellamy might have once believed, not everyone believed they had absolute responsibility to look after a relative, a child. murphy had been alone in sanctum long enough to know that, so he appreciated the blakes close bond.

she nodded along with him, though, her dark hair tied up into a ponytail that curled as she moved. “oh yeah, totally. you definitely don’t like the pretty boy athletes that treat you like a china doll. except, of course, for that one guy. thomas in senior? oh, and jack. he’s a senior too i think. not to mention that brief thing you had with danny levi, i think he graduated. you might have an age thing.” she shrugged, sitting back against the wall behind her, a very subtle, smug grin on her face. he threw a pillow at her, and blocked out her extremely loud laughing. “murphy, i notice these things. im not saying you’re like, in love with bellamy, im just saying he fits your type perfectly.”

he rolled his eyes again, placing the untouched bowl of food onto the floor next to his dog bed, so he could pull himself against the wall and mirror her. “are you suggesting i fuck your brother?” he sounded disgusted, revolted even, because he made himself. when it came to it, murphy could be a stellar actor. maybe not to someone who could almost psychically read him, but it was good enough. 

“jesus murphy, no!” she was still smiling, but her nose was crinkled with disgust. it made him laugh; she looked young, as young as she had been when they met. “he’s a little too old, isn’t he? like, on a moral scale?” she seemed genuinely curious, and murphy wasn’t sure the conversation was about him and bellamy so much anymore. 

“two years, ish? i don’t think so. i turn seventeen almost straight after he turns nineteen. its not weird. there’s things we shouldn’t do for a while, maybe, but its not weird.” he’d done older people, in age spectrum, and she knew that. but if she was asking about morals then she meant relationships, and if she was talking about relationships, it was definitely not about himself and bellamy. “but i won’t fuck your brother.” she grinned again, but it was more forced then. she didn’t look sad, just thoughtful. with a gentle nudge, he gave her a look that only they could detect as language. it was a question, one that didn’t really fit words, but she knew what he meant.

“its just… i met this guy, okay? and he’s like… he’s in college.” she was smiling, just slightly, and her voice had lowered so much in fear that her brother had somehow silently ascended the creaky ass stairs without them noticing. but her smile as she said those words was so bright that murphy didn’t really care. he was protective of octavia, obviously, but not quite on bellamy’s scale. bellamy believed she needed to be coddled and kept away from everything. murphy believed he would stab anyone that hurt her without a single sign of remorse, but she should get to experience things. 

confident in letting her go after something she clearly really wanted, he shrugged a single shoulder. “as long as he’s not twenty four, i don't see a problem with it. same age as bellamy?” she nodded, her ponytail slowly becoming more ruffled, baby hairs framing her face in a way that made her look soft. “so many girls do that. very cheerleader of you, actually. what’s his name? i don't need to do the whole ‘if you hurt her ill kill you’ thing, do i?” 

octavia grinned at him, and reached both of her unusually strong arms to wrap them around his middle and pull him onto her bed with force. it hurt a bit, but he could only laugh when she pulled him closer to hold him in a tight hug. it was also easier for them to whisper, with one of his legs over hers as they awkwardly side hugged. “lincoln. and no, but i think you’d really like him.” she sounded content, and that was enough for murphy. he’d interrogate the guy, probably with some sort of weapon to hand, but that could wait. for a while, they could settle in the comfortable quiet of schoolgirl whispering. “you and bellamy though…”

murphy groaned, loud and through a sharp laugh. she laughed against him, the arm wrapped around his back keeping him in place so he couldn’t run away. “i’m serious! he fits your type perfectly, you know that! what’s so weird about it?” she didn’t sound sure of herself, in the second half of the sentence, and murphy thought about drawing upon it, but she spoke before he could. “you know i genuinely wouldn’t care, right? it wouldn’t really change anything. you guys fight every two days anyway.” murphy laughed, but it was hollow. he was mostly focused on her words, and how sober she was when she said them. before, she’d been too drunk to really think it over, and at first thought, your best friend and brother dating seems kind of nice. but there were too many problems with it that she didn’t consider then, and yet her eyes were serious as they bore into his own.

“he’s your brother. i don't know why i even have to keep clarifying this.” he pushed her with his shoulder, but she just wrapped her arms around them until he was basically leaning back against her. she was smaller than him, though not by much anymore, but in private she was always the one to smother him, rather than the other way around. maybe it was their upbringing. “not to mention, i’ve never expressed any interest in him ever, because that would be weird. normal people aren’t just okay with this, you know?”

octavia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and rested her chin on his shoulder. murphy felt warm, even with his hands nervously fidgeting in his lap. “we aren’t normal people, murph.” he couldn’t see her face anymore, but he could feel her smiling when she pressed her face into his boney shoulder that couldn’t have been comfortable at all. “and you express interest every time you talk to him. im serious, its like he has magical wizard powers that just completely sedate your chihuahua attitude.”

murphy leant forward so he could turn to her sharply, vague annoyance written into his expression. she looked nothing but brightly amused. “my what attitude?!” 

“thats what you’re focusing on?” she laughed harder, but her hands were making the same childish grabby hands they had when he’d brought the food up. with a defeated sigh, he sat back against her, straight on that time, so she was criss cross behind him, arms wrapped around his waist then, and his head resting by her collar. it was comfy, if a little humiliating, but only octavia was with him. “i insinuate you’ve been head over heels for my brother since we were twelve and you focus on the fact i called you a chihuahua? which you are, by the way. small and angry.”

“i am not small! i’m like, 5’10”, thats average!” he really was just trying to move the conversation away from the possibility of him being stupidly soft for bellamy blake since they were in sixth grade, but every time he did think about it, it felt more true. it wasn’t love, or anything close, but it probably could be one day. he felt sick just thinking about it. octavia’s arms tightened around him, and even though she couldn’t see his face to detect his panic or realisation of years of pining, its like she could just feel it. her chin rested on his head this time, and pressed a light kiss to the top of it. it made him feel slightly stupid and childish and babied, but it probably made her feel better, so he allowed it. if anyone else tried it, he’d probably claw their eyes out. that wasn’t really the point, though. his brain was haywire with trailing thoughts, but the only one that prevailed was his realisation. “i think i might have liked your brother since we were twelve years old.”

she laughed, but it was breathy and not all her usual amusement taken from lightly making fun of him. he could tell she wasn’t upset though, and through her consistent support, he felt like shit. he’d been lying to her for weeks, just for her to pry it out of him with love and care anyway. “can we talk about something else?” he asked before she could persist some more, and he spilled everything from the past two months that had made him realise just how into bellamy blake he really was. octavia agreed, and they fell into a quiet conversation about something neither of them cared about. he knew she had questions.

those got the better of her two hours later. murphy wasn’t surprised, she was a curious person. thats why her and miller were such gossipers, because they liked to know everything that was going on as if it were a sitcom tv show. but his life wasn’t a sitcom tv show, and no matter how much he loved her, his innermost feelings were things he didn’t talk about, period. that didn’t stop her from asking. “murphy.” she hummed, their position had shifted after a couple of hours. she was lying across the length of her bed, dutifully painting her nails as they talked, a bright red crimson colour. he was sat in the middle of the bed, with his legs over hers, so they stretched off the side of the bed onto the floor. “did you get with all of those guys because they reminded you of him?”

he hesitated from where he’d been playing some mind numbing phone game, and watched the little character run straight into a wall and die. “i thought we agreed not to talk about this, blake.” murphy warned her, finger hovering over the play again button. he knew the conversation wasn’t ending then.

“yeah, but i’m curious.” she kept painting her nails as if she didn’t notice the genuine harsh note in his words, like she couldn’t feel how tense his body was. “i love you, and i just… don't think these shallow fucks will help if they’re because you love someone. it’ll just make it worse, probably.” his whole body bristled, and he had to control his breathing to not lash out. it was octavia, he couldn’t do that. not to her. he really didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. and he loved her more than anyone, more than anything, he always would even if she decided she hated him. that didn’t mean they couldn’t fight, however rarely. no friendships got through without a few arguments. “i just care about you.”

“i don't really think it's any of your business.” he snapped back, desperately trying to keep his eyes locked onto the brightly coloured ugly kids game that beamed back at him in shades of baby blue and yellow, like if he were to look up the room would burst into flames and burn them all alive. it would be on par for his seemingly unlucky track of, well, life. anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, thats what they say. he didn’t want to be john murphy to her, because that meant threats and icy cold words and absolutely no care, but he couldn’t let her know everything. there were certain things they just wouldn’t talk about. “so back off.”

“murphy.” she didn’t sound hurt, more surprised that he’d used that tone at her. it only made him more angry, for a reason he couldn’t name, and it tore him up. he knew she couldn’t hate him for that, he’d been ruder before, and yet the fear still rattled him. it became more rare year after year, to the point where he didn’t remember the last time they'd properly argued. but he wasn’t improving, he’d never improved, he’d just bottled his poison for long enough that it threatened to spill. when it did, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bottle it again. “i’m trying to help you.”

murphy sprang off the bed, finally locking his phone and sliding it into one pocket. “by insinuating im a slut because im in love with your brother?” he sneered, and yeah, maybe it was a little harsh. logically he knew that wasn’t really what she meant, but it was definitely how it came across to him. and he couldn’t excuse that just because she’d been there when his parents had died. he’d grown to used to warm floor-beds and arms to fall back in, their raising voices only proved that. “fuck you blake. fuck you and your superiority complex that just seems to run in the family. im sorry i don’t want to marry some brainless college jock.”  
he didn’t wait for an answer, nor did he grab his bag or his shoes. he just left the room, and practically jumped down three stairs at a time to get downstairs. he couldn’t hear her chasing after him, thought that was only because they both knew she’d never catch up to him if he ran.

shaking with anger and short breathed, murphy made for the front door and accepted the idea that he was going to walk all the way back to his apartment in socks and a thin t-shirt, until a voice stopped him. “don't leave.” a voice made him halt, mostly because it wasn’t octavia’s. it was probably instinct, because he moved to leave again after his stun wore off, until a hand pressed against the front door and closed it in the few inches it had been opened. “do you want a cig?” bellamy asked, and murphy was vaguely aware of the fact he was doing the stupid cliche high school movie thing where the jock practically trapped their prey into a corner. he turned to bellamy and pushed him back, but he walked into the kitchen where he knew the older boy had been, wordlessly.

he didn’t ask before he took a cigarette from the cardboard carton in the middle of the sticky table, or when he held out a hand for a lighter that bellamy handed over. he stormed out of the front door rather than the back, but he didn’t make for the road home just yet. smoking in the back yard meant being overlooked by octavia’s bedroom window, and he really didn’t want to even think about her observing him and bellamy interacting. 

the older boy was stood silently behind him, and only moved after murphy had lit his cigarette and taken a single drag, though it was only to take the zippo lighter from his hands without asking. murphy felt cold to the touch, where their fingers brushed. he knew it was stupid and over exaggerated, like he were from a nicholas sparks novel, but they sold popular for a reason. “did you guys argue?” bellamy asked quietly, and murphy wondered if it was a blake family trait to ask questions that he clearly didn’t want to answer. 

“shut up, bellamy.” he sighed, taking another drag and watching the wind whip the trees around. he hadn't realised how cold he was, but the last time it’d been noted they ended up kissing, so he willed himself to stop shivering and pretended to be fine. bellamy stepped forward again, so they were side by side, and murphy realised he was wearing the sweater he’d borrowed those years before. probably not the exact one, because the sleeves weren’t riding up his arms, but it was the same design and clearly just as loved. 

bellamy laughed, just a gentle huff of air next to the grumpy teenagers ear. “sorry, i guess.” murphy frowned more, and turned to face the boy fully.

“you know how i work. i could have clawed her eyes out or stabbed her to death with a pencil, she could be up there, hurt and crying.” he pressed, voice laced with anger even though he had nothing to be angry about, not with bellamy. “but you’re with me. what happened to family and responsibility and all that self importance bullshit?” he thought about putting the cigarette out on bellamy’s arm, just for dramatic flare, but the idea quickly died down, replaced with a rare amount of remorse at just the idea. he also wanted to finish it, because the nicotine was sending a mellowing effect through his burning bones. 

bellamy just shrugged. “i think you’re family too, honestly.” murphy didn’t speak. he couldn’t process his thoughts at all, for a moment. they weren’t descriptive poetic metaphors that wouldn’t fit the basic english language, but neither were they lengthy adjectives with hidden connotations. he just couldn’t think. his brain had completely short circuited. “plus, i dont believe you could ever get the jump on her. she’d kick you out like a sad puppy before you could even scratch her.” murphy huffed, and felt himself warm with faux anger when he realised the real fame had died down. maybe octavia was right, bellamy was a wizard with the odd ability to completely tranquillise him. 

“why is everyone comparing me a dog today?” he asked mostly the air, crushing greying ash with the toe of his sock. it burned through and left a black-edged hole in the material. bellamy laughed again beside him, but it was full and joyful and it made murphys heart hurt so bad. he was down bad, really bad. john murphy had never done feelings at all, least of all romantic feelings. and as much as he wanted to do not-so-romantic things with bellamy, he also wouldn’t mind just holding his hand, but the idea only made him want to set their house on fire and crush the older boys skull with a mallet. “can you just… can we just not talk?” he asked through a sigh, and he knew it sounded rude, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. bellamy seemed to realise that anyway.

there was an old radio on the low table that had been on one side of the blakes porch for as long as murphy could remember. he’d never seen it used, and was a little stunned when it crackled to live after bellamy jammed the buttons. it didn’t sound good at first, adjusting to the sudden use as radio hosts chattered in garbled sounds that couldn’t be deciphered. eventually though, it cleared enough for the starting notes of a song to be heard. then, a minute and a half in, it was clear enough that he could tell exactly what song it was, and he couldn’t help the smile on his face as his foot tapped along to the beat.

“sonic youth fan?” bellamy asked, and murphy wanted to kiss him. “i guess teen age riot is very you. its about as john murphy as a song can get.” that actually made him laugh, and he didn’t even care that he melted under bellamy blake so much. “not for the message though. just the, you know… vibe?”

“if you ever say vibe to me ever again i will strangle you with your own intestines.” murphy was grinning past his words, his head tilted to the side, but bellamy only hummed like he was agreeing, like he was in the process of figuring something out, and nodded slowly. it wasn’t quite the effect he wanted. “and then i will wear you like a skin suit for halloween, with octavia by my side. and ill pretend to be you for like, months. no one will know.”

bellamy was back by his side, but a lot closer. he was warm too, but he was always warm. like a personal space heater with the more endearing freckles and the most agitating personality. “i think they might wonder why i shrank half a foot.” murphy slapped him for that, just lightly on the arm, but they were both actually laughing and somehow the ridiculousness of it was making them laugh harder and harder until murphy felt his ribs aching as he tried to catch his breath. it wasn’t even really that funny, he just felt dazed with a mix of emotions causing a tsunami in his stomach. 

“you’re barely taller than me anymore.” murphy countered, turning the rest of his body to face bellamy and prove his point, which was actually true. it was close, though he was a lot slimmer, with lean muscles mostly in his legs, whereas bellamy was built, to the point where it made him look a lot taller than he really was. murphy realised how close they were, but he didn’t really care.

“i know, i dont have to bend my neck now. kind of disappointing, i thought it was sweet.” bellamy grinned down at him, taking a drag from his own cigarette and blowing the smoke straight into murphys face.

“bend your neck for what?” he asked, naive but genuine. with another wicked grin, bellamy dipped his head the inch or two that apparently meant he didn’t have to bend his neck, and kissed murphy hard on the mouth. it wasn’t like the lockers, which was demanding attention and desperate and a little bit harsh, but it wasn’t like the treehouse, all soft touches and intimacy. it was something else that felt more close to home. it felt like the two sides of their strange friendship in one, taking the fierce and the gentle and combining them. it was sweet and bitter and all murphy could taste was ash and smoke but he never wanted to stop. the radio was still blaring with rare crackles, a twin peaks song then, and the smell of cold winter air filled his senses, but it felt comfortable. 

murphy had reluctantly imagined kissing bellamy plenty of times, mostly after their first in the treehouse. his fantasies had always fallen perfectly on either end of the spectrum, but not then. with twin peaks and burning ember fingertips and snarky insults, it finally really felt like them, and he couldn’t help but curl his hands tight into the back of bellamy’s sweater to ground himself, desperate but careful, the phantom feeling of one hand firm on his hip, the other ever so gentle at the nape of his neck. everything felt contrasting, and murphy was fairly certain he was going to implode with chapped lips beaming into his own. it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the funniest thing about this fic is that i have multiple playlists on different platforms, multiple pinterest boards, pages and pages of notes, and a private twitter full of abectdotes that will never actually make it into the fic content. but when it comes to writing a chapter, it takes weeks. oh well.
> 
> p.s. i finished this instead of doing fifteen paragraphs for my film class that was due a month ago and i have to hand in by 9am tomorrow (it is 1:27am now) so you better appreciate this, and my annoyingly repetitive use of the same language. 
> 
> btw follow my twitter if you're not broke @de0twt <3


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